Coda
by Niko
Summary: Sequel to "Nocturne in Tempo Rubato". John has enough to deal with in his normal life as it is, but when a stranger arrives with a new case that cannot be turned down, can he juggle his choices with their repercussions well enough for them all to survive?
1. Chapter 1

I'm still working out what exactly my plot will be but this chapter doesn't really require me to decide on that just yet. So here's the set up.

There will be sex. I will move this fic to mature once that happens. In the meantime, it's here. I'll work on my other fic in this series on the side while working on this one. Depending on my mood, really, as the other one makes me sad.

* * *

John brought back another round from the bar and set the two heady glasses on the pub's coffee table, sliding across Greg Lestrade's while he sighed into the worn leather chair, losing half his height to the sink of cushion as the brown seating swallowed him whole. It was a busy night though less than what John would have expected from a Friday. Must have been a band in town or some other young attraction that he hadn't bothered to keep up with. Their gain either way. He couldn't remember the last time he and Greg had managed to get armchair seating away from the tables of couples popping in before a proper night out and the swarms of women palling around ruby cocktails with hair-raising cackles that echoed across the room. John much preferred the quieter atmosphere of their imagined VIP seating and toasted to their luck before his bitter swig.

"Probably could have gotten Sherlock out if we knew it'd be like this," Lestrade mused, his eyes continuing to search the limited crowd at the bar for the next Mrs. Lestrade. He wiped his mouth off on the back of his hand as his stubbled upper lip took to the foam. "Where is he anyway? Not still working that case, is he?"

John nodded, thinking back to the flat and the man sat at his microscope, occasionally popping up to pace or sit more comfortably in his chair. All cases were important until they were solved. John drew the line for tolerance of Sherlock's absurd behavior at missing persons and serial killers. Murders-though pressing in their own way-didn't require twenty-four hour attention. "We're on hour 37," John remarked, letting his annoyance color his tone. "When I get back, if he's not eating or in bed, he soon will be."

Lestrade chuckled, tipping his glass to him in a drowsy salute. "Behind every great man is a greater doctor I suppose."

John would certainly drink to that.

His own week had been the dullest of his professional life. Most of Sherlock's private cases had been trivial things requiring little to no leg work and no real need of assistance. John blogged about them all the same as Sherlock continued to share every step of his process in detail on quiet evenings in. Interesting didn't always mean time consuming, dangerous or sensational. Truthfully, they could both do with a break from the hazards of national news worthy exploits that had colored the year so far. It meant nothing more than paperwork and forms for John, however. All week long he'd logged in man-hours, listed utilized resources, typed up Sherlock's long dictations and a few of his own notes from observations of the man. For every hour of Sherlock's work there seemed an almost equivalent share of paperwork for John. If there was one things John was not, it was a typist. The work contracts had been something he'd pushed on them but his eyes were sore from staring at screens and he was seriously considering the keyboarding courses from the brochures that continued to mysteriously appear on top of his computer.

It felt good to get out. It felt good to get out with Lestrade who generally left work back at the office when he could and enjoyed a bit of life on the side. Even if they did spend most nights drunk off their tits with only a handful of numbers in the Detective Inspector's pocket, it was humanizing in a life that often focused on the ills of man rather than their virtues. Virtuous men they were not with a couple pints between them but it was good fun all the same.

A petite brunette in a short black skirt, flats and skin-tight lilac blouse, slid between the leather chairs to pop a seat down on the arm of John's. His sunken posture put his head nearly waist height, her moderate breasts just an eye slip away. He did his best to ignore her, lips to his glass, as she leaned down over him.

"Are you that detective Sherlock Holmes?" she asked, her hand immediately falling to pick through the hair of his crown. She smelled of Preppy Princess and alcohol. "I'm Susan."

John titled his head slightly to dissuade her. "John Watson; the other bloke. Greg here's Detective Inspector with Scotland Yard, though."

Susan looked over at Lestrade, smiling politely before turning back to John to lean suggestively towards him. "I saw you in the papers," she said, her ransom-red lips parting pleasantly. "You looked seriously sexy. You here with anyone tonight?"

"With a friend. Greg. Who I just introduced you to."

She wasn't the fastest server on the net. John didn't care for her blatant dismissal of Lestrade either. He leaned forward, elbows on knees to lean back into Greg's view, giving him his best '_check out this bitch_' face, more than willing to ignore her as obviously as she was him. Lestrade's grimace didn't so much appreciate the gesture as it mocked his annoyance, eyes rolling as he took another drink. Moments like these were why John was going to end up buying the next round as well. Flirtatious women were going to be the ruin of him.

Susan's short fingernails traveling up his neck put goosebumps down John's back. Combat reflexes never quite lost, he grabbed her wrist in an instant, instinctively- a tad stronger than intended but far from strong enough to harm. She hopped off the arm off his chair in a hurry all the same, the sharp tug of her arm against his grip enough for him to release her immediately. She scowled, taking a long step back. "Jerk," she seethed. She stormed off towards the bar with her chin held high while a few eyes in the room stayed pinned to John, assessing his possible threat. With a murmur things moved on, the two gentlemen in the plush leather seating forgotten in pub politics and wine.

Lestrade shook his head, chuckling into his half-empty glass of beer. "Remind me why I take you anywhere? You are the _worst_wing-man in the history of pubcrawls."

"Did you not hear me trying to push her off on you the whole time?" John sank back into his armchair, shaking his head in mock dismay as he gave the room a once over to spot anyone who might actually be a worthwhile pursuit for the silver-haired man. "You wouldn't have liked her anyway," he said, spying a blonde with wandering eyes over by a group of gossiping women. "Not only is she self-centered and not very bright but she recently broke up with her long term boyfriend and is currently unemployed. She's just trying to find herself a rich and important husband and no offence but I've seen your flat and rich you are not."

"Oh, god, not you too." Lestrade let his tall glass hit the wood coffee table with a hollow thunk, as much announcing his need of more as his disbelief. "How the hell do you know any of that?" he asked.

John shrugged, looking once again over towards the bar where Susan now stood with her back to them. "It's really not that impressive," he prefaced, though he couldn't help but smile inside at the opportunity to show off a little bit of what he'd been slowly picking up. "I mean…she's a petite woman wearing flats with a thigh length skirt. Most short women wear heals, yeah? So she probably lives in a tall stack of flats with stairs, no elevator. The cheap kind. Short nails but no calluses so probably a secretary or someone who types a lot. Definitely professional either way but not anyone vital to the corporate structure. Now Sherlock was breaking news three years ago and now again but she still managed to confuse me for Sherlock so she's not been paying attention to current events for at least three years. Yesterday's front page of the Sun, however, had a photo of Sherlock and me to go with the story of Moran's trial date announcement. The headline was 'Sherlock Holmes; Star Witness of Bombing Trial'. I've still got it on our coffee table. If Moran's bombing personally affected her, she'd have read the article and would be following the story well enough to have figured out by now who Sherlock Holmes was. So why does someone who has no interest in current events suddenly buy a newspaper? The internet's cornered the market in pretty much everything but there are still some companies that prefer to advertise their less impressive, lowest rung openings the old fashion way making newspapers still a good place for two things: job postings and coupons. Either way, money's an issue and she's looking for work. And, yeah, we can both tell she's self-centered just by the way she blew you off."

Lestrade chuckled, letting his head fall back on the couch. "God, it's like drinking with a tolerable Sherlock. Alright, and the boyfriend bit?"

"Sort of a guess," John admitted, downing the last of his own glass. "She came over to flirt with me based solely on the fact that she recognized me from the papers. She wants power and money or at least stature. Sort of person who's given up on love and moved on to money suggests someone who's been burned pretty badly. Could be they broke up months ago but she's still carrying the baggage from it."

"Does it scare you that you're becoming more and more like him?" Lestrade asked, taking up both their glasses to head back to the bar.

Seemed a good deduction was the cure to lady-magnet blues. John was happy to let him buy the next round. "Honestly? No, not really. It's your fault anyway. It's typing up all those damned dictations. He talks so bloody fast I have to play the things over and over and over again. Bound to learn something with that much repetition."

Lestrade shook his head in dismay and left, returning shortly after with two new tall glasses of ale. "We're going to make a detective out of you yet, John," he promised, all ills forgotten.

John sighed thankfully, accepting his with a quick '_Ta_' and a tip to his generosity. "Actually.. about that. I, uh... well, with the case going up against Moran clearing Sherlock's name, my old job is recanting on its decision of letting me go. They're offering me quite a few incentives to keep lawyers out of it. Great pay. Fantastic benefits. And, you know... a career that isn't entirely based on chasing after Sherlock's coattails."

Lestrade's brows rose high on his wrinkled brow. "You really wanting to give up police work?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong, I love running around with Sherlock like excitable children and all but I just… think I need to have something that's mine and not just ours." John wasn't sure how better to word it without sounding as though he was complaining. He wasn't. There were very few things he enjoyed more than keeping to Sherlock's mad hours and running here and there on whims and inference with a few cab stubs and a shared take-away to show for it most nights. He'd glorified it in his past when the danger was no longer a part of his life and vilified it when he was in the middle of it, fingers stained in residue with socks soaked in sweat. It was a rewarding hobby but John's kind of career involved a job he could retire from many years down the line that was stable in income and never out of need. "Detective work is his thing," he explained, crossing his left leg over his right knee as he reclined. "I'm just in it because he's fantastic and it's a rush. Medicine has always been my thing, though. About time I went back to it."

Lestrade nodded gravely before looking up with a quirked smile. "So what's her name then?"

"Excuse me?" John paused, his glass poised against his bottom lip.

"Come on."Lestrade sat on the edge of his seat as he leaned forward. "Wanting to get some distance from Sherlock? There's a girl, isn't there. You don't want him scaring her off. So what's her name? She a nurse or a doctor?"

"There's no girl."

"How many weekends have we spent going out to the pubs and you don't even take one number home?"

"I'm supposed to be your wing man."

"The ladies practically throw themselves at you and you don't even bat an eye. I mean, quality ladies. What was the one from last week? Jessica? Jennifer? The ginger with the rack."

John shrugged. He didn't keep track and he didn't bother to remember.

Lestrade rolled his eyes, inching even closer as though his confidence could be purchased with just that millimeter less space between. "Come on. I know you've got a girl, John Watson. What's her name?"

John put his glass to his lips, speaking down into the head. "_His_," he corrected, face feeling slightly warm.

"Eh?"

"_His_name."

Lestrade's brow pinched further, his face finding new places to fold in with incredulity. "No. Really? _You_?" He sat back, arms opening wide to perch his elbows over the back of the chair. "Wow..." He looked every bit as shocked as he sounded, falling slack-jawed and stammering in the silence. "It doesn't matter to me or anything but.. _wow_. I mean I always thought you and Sherlock might, ya know, but never thought you'd be like that with some other bloke."

John nearly choked on his draft. "What? No. No no no no _no_. Not some othe- It _is_ Sherlock. _Jesus_."

"Oh, thank _Christ_." Lestrade exhaled deeply, laughing a bit to himself as though the sigh alone hadn't done enough to alleviate his discomfort. "Not that there's anything wrong with it," he reiterated, "but that would have been just a _bit_weird."

John leaned his face against his palm, not quite insulted but getting there. "How is it _less_weird that it's Sherlock; someone you actually know?"

"Because it's Sherlock. I mean, he's not exactly one of the guys, is he? S'like his own... subspecies. Super-species. He's _different_. Hell, if he weren't such an annoying prat I might have fancied him."

"That's... disturbing."

Lestrade was far from caring, his courage lubricated with the final swig of his third drink. "So what's it like?" he asked, scooting in closer once more.

John felt himself leaning further back into his seat in response."…What's what like?"

"Dating Sherlock Holmes."

"It's… pretty much exactly the same as not dating him." John admitted, though whether or not that was a bad thing was still up for personal debate. Neither of them had really wanted things to change. They loved their life together and complicating relative perfection had seemed risky. Not that they talked about it. Sherlock was king of only talking in great detail about other people's lives and problems, staying painfully tight lipped about his own concerns. Familiar physical territory was fine while they adjusted to the new level of emotional involvement between them. That's what John told himself and thus far he was accepting of the excuse. Slow was good. Slow was fine. Sherlock had the brain of a sixty year old, the maturity of an eight year old, and the physical experience of a twelve year old. It averaged out to a fine age but John still felt sure Sherlock would rather test the strength resistance or flight capacity of a condom than put one on.

"So you two haven't...?"

"If we had, would you seriously want to know about it?"

Lestrade shrugged, backing up just a bit. "Well, not in like _detail_ or anything. But you know. _Some_idea, maybe. Just to know if he's really human. How come I haven't read about this in your blog?"

"Because my blog is very obviously far from private and it's not anyone's business." Certainly not with the press once again buzzing over potential courtroom drama in the weeks leading up to Moran's trial. There was hiding from the press and then there was simply hiding _things_from the press. John liked to think he and Sherlock were quite skilled at the latter. It was still good publicity to be turn up in the papers after all—as Susan had so adequately proven.

"Well, come on then." Greg gave John's knee a pat of encouragement, the night seemingly taking a steep change from bird watching to confessional. "Tell me how it happened. Who asked who? Was there alcohol involved?

John let his breath hum through his nose, not really sure he cared for a long version of the retelling and less sure how exactly the short version worked out. "No one asked. He said he loved me, I was a dick, and a week later I told him I loved him too. Then we had dinner and went home. That's pretty much it." In a nutshell; a very small, inadequately sized nutshell.

"And now you're dating?"

"More or less." John sunk down in his seat, feeling oddly comfortable despite the candid topic of conversation. There were few people who knew Sherlock and himself well enough to _get it_. Perhaps he'd been looking forward to the chance to talk about it to someone not Mycroft or the skull. The skull was always on Sherlock's side, besides. "I mean we live together so we do damn near everything together anyway. I just have better leverage in arguments now and less personal space when he decides my lap is a pillow. But, you know, still separate rooms and violin wake up calls at two a.m. and body parts in the kitchen appliances."

Lestrade's modest face turned shocked, fingers stroking the sides of his mouth as his lips formed an 'o'. "Separate rooms? You're joking. Aren't you?" He laughed, shaking his head. "I hate to break it to you, John, but you and Sherlock aren't dating."

John opened his mouth to start in on him but Lestrade's raised hand stopped him.

"No no no. Two people who love each other, live together, bicker all day and never have sex? John, you're not dating, you're _married_."

"…Oh…" John looked at the bottom of his empty glass, watching the while bubbles and undrinkable amber liquid that pooled in the circle's rim. "Yeah, probably," he said.

"Knew it'd be you," Lestrade quipped, waving down an aimless waitress for two more. "I mean, not that you would. But for him, I mean. You or no one. Just do me a favor, alright?"

John nodded, settling in for part two of the protective older brother speech from the detective inspector. Blood or not, Lestrade was someone who'd looked after Sherlock when he'd most needed someone to care about him. Friends tended to become more like family with Sherlock. You learned to love him one way or another, John suspected. Sherlock was truly the marmite of men.

"Don't tell him I said so," Lestrade started, leaning over the arm so as not to have to raise his voice, "But just to see if it helps make him a somewhat more tolerable prick, I need you to shag his fucking brains out, alright?"

John's face had never been stained a deeper, more permanent shade of red.

The whole ride home in the cab John tried to wipe his mind free of the whole conversation, scrubbing furiously at the candid request that in a separate context would have been laughably acceptable from a friend. It was just one of those things blokes said, one of those phrases that people passed around. Someone is cranky, someone's being a bit of a bitch, you tell them to get laid. There were several instances in which John had made the joke himself about Sherlock, especially when Irene Adler had been in the picture. _'You know she fancies you, yeah? Go on, then; it'd probably do you some good.'_It was demonstrably different when the person left with the task, the other party in the joke, was John himself; like it was his job to tame the shrew with a few good knocks of the headboard.

John had to stop again to rub his face, peeling off the flush with his sweating palms. Oh, god, if only it was that easy.

Home at last he quietly walked up the stairs to their flat, not at all surprised to hear Sherlock hard at work at the kitchen table, a pair of plastic protective lenses strapped to his head, forcing his hair to part in off directions like a confused potted plant.

John leaned in the doorway, quite sure by the way the lights haloed that the frame was almost as necessary for his stability as the railing to the stairs had been. "That's two days, Sherlock," John noted, pointing towards an invisible watch not strapped to either of their wrists.

Sherlock hummed, not raising his gaze from the glass beaker in his hand.

"We talked about this. Your experiment will still be there in the morning."

"And a murderer will still be free as well."

John sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He hated these arguments and the way they never seemed to resolve. Sherlock was a creature of habit, falling into his familiar routine no matter how many times John implored. Rules, requests, promises, begging. He could only ask in so many ways for the man to invest in his own well being.

On the counter by the sink, however, was an empty plate and on top of the trash the container that had at last he'd seen contained the leftovers from their last take-away. John smiled a little to himself. One habit at a time, perhaps.

"If it's going to keep you up anyway, then."

"It will." Sherlock's eyes flickered up from his work for a moment, undoubtedly looking for and catching the upward turn of his partner's lips. He settled back into his slouch, eyes glued once more to his work. "Good night, John."

John nodded, giving the doorframe a pat as he pushed off to walk down his hall, another night spent alone, lulled by the tinkering of his partner in the next room. "Good night, Sherlock," he said, waving to him as his hand trailed along the refrigerator and continued across the wall.

Shag his brains out? John chuckled to himself, tugging the buttons of his shirt through their holes. A good ol' romp in the sheets was hardly the cure for all that ailed them in their uncertain relationship.

But John wouldn't have minded giving it a try.


	2. Chapter 2

John enjoyed his Saturday mornings, waking up with sun-kissed feet, sprawled out on his bed with his sleep pants bunched against his calves and shirt shifted high enough to feel the cool sheets against his belly. There were few comforts more enthralling than sleeping in to the drum of bins in the back alley and the hum of the air conditioner as it fought against the late morning swell. He could smell Mrs. Hudson's baking downstairs—or perhaps something from Speedy's seeping through the ducts. It was yeast and salt, something heavier and savory. John's empty gut gave an appreciative rumble to the foods his mind could list that might comprise the smells. What was once sloshing with liquid bread was now empty and entranced as his nose picked a dream meal from the air and starved his body of fruition by remaining perfectly still in comfort. Outside the bed there was food but inside where his bones and muscles felt relaxed, his mind was untroubled and his whole world could be summed up in the colors of white and blue, John had nearly everything else he could ever hope for.

The crash of the door below and the thunder of steps coming up reminded him of at least one more thing he wanted, though. He groaned rather than smiled, turning his face into the cotton softness of his pillow as he rolled over onto his side. It was far too pleasant a morning for Sherlock's shenanigans. He could remember the night before, the thin man slumped over his work as he pressed on through the night. He'd been down this road so many times there was hardly any trick at all to assuming the flow of events. If Sherlock was still at it, the violin would soon be stretching out her tune through the air, battling the sounds of the city for dominance in their flat with no care given to the natural rhythm of the world outside. If London was in 4/4, Sherlock seemed to decide today he'd play in 3/4, battling Bach against business in a violent crescendo above the mezzo piano of the calm streets. He was the only man John had even known who could make music uncommonly contrary.

If he had solved the case, the flat would be spared the violin at least. In the past a success would have meant food but John suspected, with no small amount of pride, that Sherlock wasn't nearly so hungry this time. Sleep, then. Seeing John not up and about to speak to, Sherlock would pound his way up the next flight of stairs, retreating to his room above to hibernate through the peaceful morning until John dragged him out in the late afternoon for a meal and his own good. John kept his ears tuned to the interior, waiting for the thunder to return as big feet took heavy steps in ascension. It didn't come, though. John listened quietly, listening to his movements in the way the vibrations traveled through him. Den. Kitchen. Bathroom? The steps did not stop or falter in the hall as the door to his bedroom opened, one Sherlock Holmes helping himself to the master suite as he kicked the door closed behind him with his heel and flopped onto the mattress with no word or warning.

That was… new.

John rolled onto his other side, facing the faceless lump of dark brown curls not quite gracing the pillow as Sherlock lay with his nose to the sheets. John smirked as he looked down the length of him, down the square of his shoulders, the dip of his lower back, the rise of his arse all still clothed in the previous day's suit sans jacket. His legs were half hanging off the bed, one arm joining them in the unsupported swing of limbs too long for just one side of the bed in a diagonal drop. John reached down and grabbed the excess material of his trousers along his thigh and gave them a firm tug, not really expecting to be able to reel the detective in but hoping to spur the effort. Sherlock sighed, the long-suffering sound muffled, as he drew his knees in and shifted up like a worm, eventually getting all but his left foot settled as he refused to lay parallel.

John kissed the curls now pressed to his cheek, eyes closed to the joy of feeling the other man's warm breath against his neck. His left arm was prisoner now, straddled by Sherlock's chin and shoulders. He didn't mind. Of the list of things that John minded, there was a very particular caveat to the entry reading "detainment" that made allowances for ninety-percent of the things Sherlock requested or initiated. It was always a good idea to leave a ten-percent leeway for the off colored requests that threatened his physical or mental well being such as being locked in a military research facility under the influence of fear inducing drugs.

Still a sore spot. But for Sherlock he had an overwhelming soft spot, especially for little moments like these when the other man seemed his most human, his guard down and his basest of desires on display in a posture that could only speak of a want for attention of an affectionate nature. John breathed in his musky scent, at least a day off from his last wash with his own smell no longer driven back by the clean mask of soap. It was masculine but far from unpleasant, not body odor but simply body smell. It was the smell left on sheets after a night's peaceful rest and it put John in a place of solace with the sun still warming his toes. His other arm came to rest along Sherlock's side on instinct, the need to envelope and own the bliss beside him driving his fingers to float along the thin, silky material on his button-down, stroking his ribs, teasing down his waist till Sherlock's chest expanded with the deep breath of surprised pleasure, stretching out to elongate the palate John brushed along with gentle strokes.

They'd never laid like this before. There was a certain boldness found in the heaviness of near-sleep that John credited with the new discovery of the sensitivity along Sherlock's waist. He repeated the motions lazily, mapping out the exact spot that made the detective flex to stave off a shudder. He filed it away, glancing his fingertips higher along the detective's back, more interested in soothing than arousal. Of all the things John could give him, he knew his partner needed sleep the most. Comfort, relaxation, and love were the forefront of his duties to the man. He was John's just as John was his. It was a wonder the pride of it hadn't found a drunken moment to tattoo the fact somewhere on his body; a nice big '_Sherlock's_' on the underside of his foot least he ever need to be returned to sender.

It wasn't even worth pretending he wouldn't like to see '_John's_' permanently scarring that clean alabaster slate.

He felt Sherlock's breath even, not quite asleep yet but in a state not that unlike it. "It was the father," the detective muttered, tongue half drunk on exhaustion.

John kissed his head again. "Good job," he whispered against the curve of his ear. He loved the feel of his wrinkled smile under his chin. "You know, you could sleep here at any time. Doesn't have to be midmorning, half passed out after a case. You could just come back here with me at night."

"Mm," Sherlock replied, more a moan of content than any real response.

John stroked his hair, idling a curl around his forefinger. "You don't have to. Just letting you know that's sort of a given. With, you know,... where we stand now."

"Are you considering sex again?"

"There are other reasons two people might share a bed." He gave the curl a short tug, frowning with lax concentration as the restfulness kept his nerves from counting down to the last. "Reasons like this right now for instance. And, you know, we could save some funds not having both bedrooms if we don't really need two."

"And have a stranger move in upstairs?" Tired as he was, Sherlock still managed to imbue his words with the appropriate levels of disgust. "No," he said adamantly, "we're keeping the first and second floors. And as funds are hardly an issue, we can assume this sudden request doesn't stem from a monetary concern so which insecurity are we speaking from today?"

John scowled, mood deflating. He tightened his arm around him, trying to squeeze the attitude out of the detective to keep the sweetness of the morning. "Turn it off, Sherlock. What's wrong with wanting to share a bed? It's not like we haven't before."

"Circumstantially. I fail to see the appeal on a nightly basis. It's not as though we're spending 'quality' time together. We're asleep. Besides which, we both favor the left side of the bed."

"Then I'll take the right."

"You'll gravitate back to the left."

"Then we'll cuddle. Thought you liked that."

"I did," he said. "I do," he corrected. Sherlock turned his face against John's cheek, nose nudging against the broken smile like he could force a dimple into his visage.

Touch for the sake of touching, nothing wanted or needed but the presence of the other and the pleasant reminders of their affection with attentive caresses and an embrace. Things like these were much more superfluous than many of the things Sherlock spurned. But it was new. Touch was a new experiment, perhaps; brave new steps taken into the field of study which included physical response and a stimulus reward without objective. There was no real way of knowing in which way his funny odd head had decided to categorize the things he wanted apart from the things he may want but did not pursue. It was touchingly juvenile.

"If you don't mind this, when what's the trouble of sleeping with me?" John asked, palm pressing against his lower back to ride the ridges of his spine back up to his neck.

"No trouble. Just… well, it's needlessly intrusive, isn't it?"

"And this isn't?"

"You're awake," Sherlock pointed out needlessly. "Hardly an inconvenience to you if I come in here to sleep. If you want to leave, you can. If you want to stay, you're welcome to. But I'm not forcing my presence on you in any real, unavoidable sense."

"Funny you should be considerate of that _now_." John breathed deep, letting his eyes fall closed as the added warmth of Sherlock made the summer morning a bit much but too rare to lose. "This is never an inconvenience, Sherlock. Never."

"Until such point as I simply do not wish to share the bed any longer and you decide to take it personally. Because you are used to such things being signals of discord, you'd look for signs of inadequacy or some failing on your part, annoying me in the process and lending more credence to your false assumptions. No, better to keep this as something to look forward to than the norm, don't you think?"

John moved his fingertips in gentle circles along Sherlock's scalp. "Give me the chance to succeed before you write me off as lost. I happen to be a great boyfriend."

The detective smirked, the sound of it felt more than seen with his face still tucked between the pillow and John's. "Is this important to you?"

"It's not the battle I'm choosing but it'd be nice to have more nights or mornings like this once I start working again at the hospital."

He'd said the 'H' word. Sherlock eyelashes fluttered against his cheek as the man rolled his eyes, curling up to ignore the day as much as the future. "Of course. The _hospital_." He scooted his hips over, finally accepting the need to fit long-ways down the mattress as he turned away from John, still somehow remaining on his belly. "Isn't working with me more fun? Can't you ignore the responsible adult thing a while longer? Indefinitely would be fine."

John sighed despite the want to chuckle at his moody partner. He gave his backside a firm pat before hoisting himself out of bed, skin damp with the sweat of simply sharing another's proximity. "Whine all you want about it, Sherlock, but this is a fantastic opportunity for me. For us, really. They're desperate to get on my good side. I've got the directors agreeing to allow me zero-notice sabbaticals for when your cases require travel and it's the same pay for half the hours I was working. They are eating out of the palm of my hand because they're half scared of litigation and half greedy for a bit of the Sherlock Holme's lime light. You know this is a good thing; I know you do. Hell, I even know you're secretly happy for me. Just accept the fact that I'm going to accept the job."

Sherlock said nothing, feigning sleep. John pressed his curled bangs from his forehead, looking down at the slight pinch of annoyance still scrunched against the detective's nose. He bent down and kissed it gently before heading to the bathroom.

"Good night, Sherlock," he called over his shoulder, flicking on the lights to one room and keeping them off in the other.

"Good morning, John," was the half-heard reply.

John smiled as he slid the bathroom door into place between them, rather sure it was one.


	3. Chapter 3

John didn't mind having some of his old privileges revoked when he put in his resignation with Scotland Yard. He didn't mind the new provisions they had to put in place for his future assistance in some of Sherlock's more interesting cases. He couldn't even really say he minded that he was flat out barred from work that came down from the Yard—-though it seemed they all knew Sherlock would bring him into it if he wanted him there. No, what Captain John Hamish Watson M.D. _really_ minded was a short blonde in heals and an A-line skirt Lestrade had assigned as Sherlock's new assistant.

'_He needs an assistant_', everyone had been fond of reminding him, sensing his displeasure. Sherlock had John so far as John was concerned. But Sherlock needed an assistant with full Yard clearance-a full-time gun watching his back. No room to argue there; John had found his weapon indispensible on many occasions, and Sherlock too distracted by the case to be trusted to guard himself. Self preservation was never Sherlock's strongest suit. But protecting the transport and the beautiful mind were John's duty. Guarding over Sherlock was just what he did, what he was supposed to do on an almost instinctual level. And to have some strange woman in their flat whose expressed purpose was to replace him in that aspect as well as in every other assisting capacity?

"Fantastic!"

John couldn't help but hate her just a little bit.

Billie leaned over Sherlock's shoulder as he sat at his laptop, pointing out some clue no one else had seen. Her eyes were positively beaming, one leg lifting at the knee so she stood solely on the ball of her left foot. It was ridiculously coquettish from an inspector but being a decade younger than John and no doubt aware of the way Sherlock's cheeks still colored with praise, he wasn't all that surprised she wasn't going for the curls.

"You deduced all that from just the e-mail's header?" she asked, voice rougher than one would imagine from a young girl but pleasantly husky rather than smoker's remorse.

"Hardly difficult." Sherlock leaned back, gesturing with sweeping motions that looked as though he enjoyed the swish of his own limbs as much as he did the sound of his own voice. "Anyone with a basic idea about IP addresses could tell that these e-mails were being sent from the same location. The stepfather was obviously trying to trick his stepdaughter out of her inheritance through an online dating scheme. Not entirely illegal but most certainly immoral." He smirked, closing the lid on his laptop as he stood up from his chair almost too quickly, Billie teetering with the loss of his weight to ground the chair. "All that remains is to inform the young lady that her mysterious online suitor is not in fact a missing person but quite unfortunately resides in her own home."

John cleared his throat, all but lurking in the kitchen doorway with his take-away cupped in one hand, chopsticks in the other. He caught Sherlock's eye in time to give him a look that said what words no longer really needed to. Sherlock knew better.

As though to prove this point, Sherlock frowned, his excitement dampening slightly. "Perhaps I should leave the sensitive matter to you, Inspector Bradstreet," he said.

Billie smirked, shoulders held back a bit more with pride in the new responsibility. The buttons on her blouse seemed to wince with the new stretch. "Sure, wouldn't be a problem at all." Her optimistic tone was grating on John but seemed to fly under Sherlock's radar. She collected her jacket from their wall hooks, smartly dressed in grey and pink. "Would probably be a bit easier coming from another woman, really. Do you need me to take care of closing the missing person's file with the department as well?"

"Last I checked I was still just a consultant so yes, I believe that falls under your job description."

Billie held her smile, not in the least bit put off by Sherlock's slightly abrasive personality. "I'll have it all taken care of by the end of the day. I suppose I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Sherlock nodded, pacing towards his tuned and ready violin sitting in his chair as though he'd known from the beginning the case was at most a three. "Tomorrow will be fine. Bring sensible shoes next time," he warned.

Billie rolled her eyes. "I told you, I can run in heals just fine."

Sherlock replied with a squeaky open 'E' pulled too close across to the bridge at an off angle. The inspector winced but continued to smirk before nodding to both men and heading back down the stairs.

John waited until he heard the door to the stoop close before taking a long, deep breath and shoveling in another drooping bite of buckwheat noodles and soy sauce.

"You're jealous."

"I am not," John said around a hardly chewed mouthful.

Sherlock ran through the G major scale to ensure the dials hadn't shifted while the instrument had waited, eyes following John as he paced from the doorway to the now vacated table. "You came home from the hospital for lunch. You hardly ever come home midday."

"Well, I wanted to see you."

"You wanted to _watch_ me."

John cleared his throat, his face feeling rather hot. Oh, the joys of loving the second-most observant man on the planet. "Your's is getting cold," he said instead, changing the topic to the second container sitting next to the bottle of orange liquid and a beaker of spit.

Sherlock looked over at it and nodded, undeterred from his violin. He played John a simple melody instead, improvised from the sound of it and the way he repeated certain elements he liked but ignored other phrases that hadn't quite come out as he intended. John would have argued more on the hierarchal differences between food and music but it was hard to complain. He found himself forgetting to eat as he watched the dexterous fingers of his partner's sinister hand press along the strings and neck to coerce notes into a melody. His bow hand carried on with long and short strokes, multitasking to the same end result as Sherlock's eyes alternated between searching and shut. It was mesmerizing. It always had been and still was. For all his facts and logic it was all too easy to forget that the man was creative-artistic even. John eventually scrapped his carton clean, eating as quietly as possible to not disturb the frame of mind that pulled out a pleasing, lyrical tune.

Sherlock stopped on his own eventually, tilting his head to John's finished lunch. "Hadn't you better be getting back now?"

"In a minute, yeah." John looked at his watch. His hour lunch was already looking rather extended. "You know, of all the things that I considered before taking the job, I never really factored in how much I was going to miss you."

Sherlock smirked, his violin resting once more against the arm of his chair. "I was gone for three years. I'm certain you can handle being out of my presence for nine hours."

"I said I _miss_ you, you narcissistic git. I didn't say I was pining the hours away on oxytocin fantasies." He smirked at the raise of Sherlock's brow. He always reacted positively when John slipped in a chemical reference or two. "Since you came back it's been... well, it's been us. Just us. Morning, noon and night."

"I saw you this morning, you're here at noon, and I'm assured I'll see you tonight."

"That is not what I mean and you know it."

Sherlock shrugged theatrically as he walked to retrieve his own cooled meal and took a seat across from John. The flat was quiet without the music, hanging in the air instead an inclination for speech. Sherlock filled his mouth with food, stabbing noodles and chicken with his fork in the most inelegant manner of eating.

John rested his chin on his wrist as he watched him slurp, sauce catching on his chin. "So what are you going to be doing with the rest of your day now that Billie's dismissed?"

"I have a few experiments I'm in the middle of," he said, wiping the sauce off on his thumb before John could lean forward to assist. "Could possibly be working on them into the night if things progress as I think they should."

"Oh." It was hard not to let the slight disappointment color his words.

Sherlock kept his eyes staring down at his take-away. "My work is important, John. Second now but still important."

"As much as I love to hear you say that, It's not-I don't know, maybe we need to have a schedule to work around so dates and things don't go completely by the wayside."

"That's not how you want it."

"No, not really," John admitted. He rested his chin over interwoven fingers, leaning both elbows on the table. "I'd rather you make those sorts of choices because you want to."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, a scowl deepening in the corners of his sauce-glossed lips. "I fail to see how doing something because it makes you happy is of lesser value than doing something I want to do that only happens to make you happy."

"Sherlock, I'm not dating your impression of a good boyfriend. I'm dating you. If you'd rather do experiments through the night than get in bed with me then do that. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I mean, I'll _ask_ you for things like having lunch with me but this isn't an obligation just because we're together now."

"So I _can_ do some things because it will make you happy but I can't use that reasoning for _all_ things." He spoke around his food, muffled by chicken until he swallowed and said, "You do realize that is ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous!" John rolled his eyes, sitting back in his chair. It seemed like they'd had variations of this same argument time and time again. He wasn't sure how many more ways he could make himself clear. "Look, there's doing something for someone else as a special treat and then there's making yourself please someone else because you feel you have to."

"And you're against the latter."

"Yes. Adamantly."

"So why am I eating this?"

John paused, the obvious answer of '_because you're hungry_' being forgotten with the lurking knowledge that no, no he was not. Sherlock had experiments to do, _brain_ work. John swallowed, feeling himself losing ground as he sank slightly against the chair's back. "That's... that's different." Though how it was different exactly was harder to describe.

Sherlock hadn't lost any steam. He plowed on talking, stirring his meal as he did so. "Look. You don't want me to pretend to be someone I'm not. Fine; thank you. But I honestly don't even know what kind of..._boyfriend_ I am. I haven't exactly invested a great deal of time or effort into it in the past. So ask things of me, let me try them, and if I despise it, I won't continue to oblige you. If you insist on asking me to do what I want to do, I will continue to disappoint you by doing what I _know_ to do which hardly applies to our situation. You have had the benefit of repeated trial and error. This is my first and only attempt at a relationship with another human being. You can either leave me to my own devices or tell me what you would like me to be doing. I can tell you without ambiguity that the latter is much more efficient."

"Oh, yes, that's a fine idea," Johns scoffed, tilting his head with his sarcastic impression. "'_Hey, Sherlock, if you're not too busy, why not pop a seat on the floor here and blow me?_'. Yes, excellent plan. I can see how this will really help our relationship."

Sherlock's left brow arched with interest. "Would you like me to?"

John paused with his mouth hanging open, a little voice in the back of his head still capable of random outbursts of praise now rendered speechless at how Sherlock could take even a simple answer and make it completely incomprehensible. "… That is not even remotely the point," he managed not to stutter out. The back of his neck and his ears felt hot.

"John, do use your head—it's more than just something handsome the rest of us get to enjoy," Sherlock's irritation was offset only slightly by the flippant words of praise. It was still enough to keep back a fight and continue with conversation, keeping things cordial despite their disagreement. "This is really not that difficult a concept to grasp," he said.

"No, I grasp it. I'm just…not entirely comfortable with it."

"You're being impossible."

"Well, hello, Kettle."

"Fine, then." Sherlock stuck his fork hard and heavy into his carton, leaning back in his chair like the petulant child he so often was. "I am sleeping in your bed tonight at the same hour as you. I enjoyed it well enough on the night I returned so repeating the experiment should produce similar results if the enjoyment was from repeatable elements and not simple relief at being welcomed home. You made it very clear you would appreciate my presence in your bed so I can hardly assume this would be an unwelcomed move. Any reservations?"

John shook his head. "None."

"Very well, then." Sherlock gave a finite nod, as though they had closed on a business deal or settled a bet. "Now that I have sufficiently made the current atmosphere awkward, I'm sure you will find returning to work to be much more inviting."

"You have successfully turned work into a refuge from relationship discussions. Which reminds me to tell you I love you." John stood and leaned across the table, kissing him for the taste of sticky, savory sauce that still lingered in the corner of his lips. He could feel Sherlock's smile as his tongue dipped in, hardly disguising his ulterior motive. John gave him a proper peck before pulling away. He needed to do that more often. If Sherlock needed instruction he most definitely needed to do that more.

He was late getting back. John was more or less given permission to do next to anything he wanted as far as his schedule went but lingering lunches still felt like a little abuse towards their generosity. He stretched, chucking his empty carton in the bin before walking to grab his jacket from the hooks by the door.

"Just so you know, it is different," Sherlock said, "The food thing." He stirred his noodles again, eyes drawn to the dwindling contents. "My boyfriend didn't tell me to be better about food; my doctor did."

John smiled softly as he shrugged his jacket over his shoulders. "Smart man."

"The best in the world." Sherlock forked another bite, staring at it for a moment before continuing with his lunch. "Well, I say best. He's a bit thick."

"Funny, I think he said the same thing about his patient."

Sherlock chuckled, his grin creasing his face with the age it usually disguised. "Go to work, John. I have a time table to finish with these experiments now, unless you want bedtime to be four in the morning."

"Eleven at the latest," John insisted, grateful for Sherlock's nod of acceptance. He smiled, feeling oddly hopeful though the heaviness from their conversation still settled below it. "I'll see you later, Sherlock."

"Mm," he said through another mouthful.

With his jacket pulled on and his wallet already safely buried in his pocket, John turned and left the flat with a passing goodbye to Mrs. Hudson as she peered out at him as he went. The weather was quite nice but as changeable as Moriarty, the threat of rain hanging in the air along with the remaining smells of Speedy's baked goods.

He felt a bit foolish for coming home just to keep an eye on Billie. Even if she was a bit more flirtatious than he liked, Sherlock had his perpetual blinders on. In all the world there were only two people who mattered in that respect: The Woman and John. With the one of them dead, John knew he shouldn't bother with feelings of jealousy. Sherlock wasn't wired in a way that made pretty faces and rather outstanding curves tempting. John was quite aware Sherlock wasn't wired in a way that made anyone a temptation. Not even John though he'd chosen John and wanted John. Like so many things, it was easier to understand when he wasn't a part of it. His own wanting of Sherlock still felt at times like that nagging voice in the back of his mind from long ago at university that wondered what the harm of experimenting was. He'd never been inclined to given the sort of mates he'd had but twenty-something seemed a lot more appropriate an age to see if you could get it up with a bloke than forty did. It wasn't exactly how he thought his life would go but he had no complaints. He was happy. He was in love. It was just... frustrating.

All the cabs seemed to already have their fares as John tried to wave one down. The lunch rush; the busy hour. He pulled his phone out, about ready to sod the cab and call in to tell them he'd be delayed a bit longer as he walked or took the tube when a sleek black car-not a cab-came to a stop in front of 221 B. John caught his reflection in the tinted glass, his confused look automatically pinching down into a grimace. Perhaps simply '_delayed_' wasn't quite the term he should be using.

"Please tell me you're dropping off and not picking up," he said to the car, which had very little say in the matter.

The doors opened and a man in a black suit and tie stepped out, holding the door open as he looked John over. "Please get in, sir," he instructed. He looked every bit like an office worker, a government employee, someone who probably didn't carry a gun but knew how to use one. After the incident with the cabby, John had paid extra attention to how to pick out a civil servant. The nails, the shoes, the haircut, the details that went beyond nice clothes. This wasn't Mycroft's usual but then again Mycroft tended to pick him up in the manner that best suited the situation.

Buckingham Palace again, perhaps? Somewhere high security at any rate. He squared his shoulders. "I do have a proper job, you know. He can't just pick me up off the street whenever he feels like it."

"Your absence has been reported. Get in, please."

Just like the man to decide for him. John scowled but out of habit and curiosity he slid into the car. "Remind me to tell Mycroft this whole kidnapping thing is really getting old," he said, shifting in across the leather.

In the seat facing his was a man he'd never seen before, though, smiling with a silent chuckle. "It's so good to finally meet the infamous John Watson," the stranger said, looking all too much like the sly cat who'd caught the mouse.

The side door to the car slammed shut beside John, the lock engaged as the car rolled away down the street.


	4. Chapter 4

John's initial thought was not to panic. His first impulse, however, was to reach for the gun he didn't carry and curse at himself for being such an idiot. It was unfortunately not the first time he'd crawled into the back seat of a posh, black car and found someone other than Mycroft. The Government had instilled a rather dangerous habit in him with his pointlessly sinister summons. The first time he'd made the mistake, it had been the presumed dead Irene Adler he'd arrived to find. The man sitting opposite him smelling of expensive cologne and new-car type musk was a complete and total stranger.

His skin was tan which didn't help John as much as he'd thought it might as he failed to find tell-all tan lines. Recently returned from holiday, maybe, or perhaps he frequented tanning booths. He almost seemed the type. John's gut said military though he was hard pressed to support it by the length of the man's blonde hair or the relative ease of his posture. The gut feeling was enough for him, honestly-one recognizes their own kind. He decided perhaps the thin, crooked nose was from repetitive injury, the surroundings making the stranger seem more the type who had worked his way up than who had been born privileged and entitled. It didn't endear John to him any. It made him more wary if anything, not quite sure what sort of man the tanned stranger was who would fight his way to the upper echelon and pick up blogger doctors off the street.

The man smiled, fingers entwined in his lap as he reclined. "I'm generally officed in Thessaloniki if that helps any," he said, smirking even more at the way John's eyes narrowed sharply. "I know the look," he explained, shifting in his seat. "We all pick up a few tricks from him here and there. Though I admit, as much intel as I have on you, you are still not at all what I pictured. Five-eight is a lot shorter in person than on paper."

John bristled, sitting up taller. "You know, in the service, short jokes stop around the time you swing a grown man over your shoulders and carry him off the battle field. You want to make me feel small, height comments aren't really the way to go about it."

"Tongue and cheek. I didn't get that so much from the e-mails. I can see why you two get along."

A sizzle ran down John's spine, sparking like a fuse at his neck. "E-mails?"

The stranger smiled. He reminded John of Moriarty in some strange way. A little smarmy, possessing a charismatic, practiced charm. They were both the sorts of people you would probably not mind to have in your sitting room until you realized who they were. The mental association made the mystery of the man all the more unnerving. John was rather done playing with spiders and parasites. Whatever this man was, he was unwelcomed.

"I have a matter of business I'd like to discuss with Sherlock," he said. "I can't contact him directly but I believe you will make an excellent conduit for communication in that absence." He laced fingers over a crossed knee, leaning forward. "Don't worry; I won't ask you to do anything that would pointless endanger you both. I guess you could say I'm an old friend of his."

"I've met old friends of his. They're all dicks. Just know that I set the pricing and 'old friend' automatically ups the bill by thirty percent."

The man laughed, his smile less practiced and more genuine. "I like you. I didn't think I would but I do."

"Well, that's good. I still don't have the slightest idea who you are." John's eyes narrowed, trying to imagine on what paths Sherlock and this man had crossed. He seemed the right age to have been a university 'friend' like good ole' Sebastian Wilkes. It wasn't the kind of guessing game he enjoyed, though. "How do you know Sherlock?" he asked, trying to keep from licking his lips expectantly and failing.

The stranger's pleased expression remained. "I don't, really. I suppose you'd say I was more a friend of James Sigerson." He leaned forward, hand extended to John in greeting. "Steven Church."

Hesitantly John shook his hand, the name not one he remembered but Sherlock's pseudonym ringing clear as a bell. "You knew Sherlock when he was undercover?" he asked.

"I'm his boss. Was his boss. It gets a bit technical, really." Church sat back with a sigh, settling in again with a squeak against the leather seating. "And as I said, I have a case for him."

John nodded, hearing him just fine but seeing him for the first time. Not the Government but the Firm. Now _that_ made him feel small. John cleared his throat, fingers pulling slightly at the collar of his button down and tie. "Right… Right. Well, I can... listen to your proposal I guess. Still probably easier if you spoke to him yourself." He pursed his lips, eyes narrowed slightly in observation. "Or is there a reason why he wouldn't want to speak to you? He's never mentioned you, you know."

Church shrugged, eyes looking off towards the tinted windows and their view of a darker London. "Not surprising. Confidentiality is hardly his strong suit—nor yours; yes, I've read your blog—but neither were those the best of times. Brilliant man. Stunningly brilliant. And a fucking moron when you get down to it."

"Yeah, that's Sherlock." John resisted the urge to stipulate '_my Sherlock_' though the past hour had instilled a slight possessive streak with assistants and friends that weren't him suddenly dropping into his life. He imagined he wouldn't mind Billie after a few weeks but this man… John was both intensely intrigued at the idea of meeting someone from that time in Sherlock's life and extremely wary.

"You know, I told him to give up on this. On ever coming home. Suicide mission. Should have known he'd manage. First Moriarty, then Moran. He's making my men look bad." Church smiled still. "England needs him much more than London does. You know that, John."

"Well, we've done cases vital to Queen and Country before. They're not a problem. What is it? Kidnapping? Blackmail?"

"Simple murder, I'm afraid, but still very much both yours and my own concern." Church hesitated a moment, eyes still flickering towards the landscape outside. "It's better if we discuss things in my office," he said at last.

John shared his glance, looking out at the Thames and Vauxhall bridge where their destination-large, new and slightly ominous—loomed over most of their visible skyline. John licked his lips nervously, finding his chosen attire hardly fitting for the occasion. Button down and tie were fine but the red wool sweater vest really didn't have that James Bond flair. He was beginning to understand perhaps a little more why Sherlock always insisted on wearing a suit.

He half expected a blindfold to be slid over his eyes once they exited the car. As with the handful of times he'd dropped in on Mycroft, though, having clearance enough to get inside the building seemed enough to afford one a quick look around. They didn't dally and John didn't fall behind. Every lift and door they passed through required Church's authorization to which John respectfully waited, eyes averted from most of the more interesting items to admire the simple, mostly abstract artwork on the walls. He tried to ignore the nervous twitch of his fingers as they walked past people who had the luxury to stare. It was like Baskerville all over again, only this time by invitation. John nodded but worried his lips over a smile, front teeth showing like a beaver the few times he deemed so much as a smirk to a desk attendant.

"Two coffees," Church ordered as he walked past the last administrative desk on their walk. "John; cream and sugar?"

"Black," he managed, nodding to the smartly dressed woman waiting on them as they breezed past into a large, windowed office. From there London looked bluer, the waters of the Thames half green under the tinted light. They were far from any penthouse view. As high up as John had thought the man before him was, there were still many more above him. It helped settle his nerves a bit to know he wasn't speaking to the head of national intelligence.

Church took a seat behind his desk and motioned for John to sit as well. The leather creaked, the furniture far from worn-in while the deep wood of the table shone with new polish. Their coffee was brought in without much delay, 'thank you's exchanged for proper porcelain cups. John let the dark liquid calm him completely, becoming much more at home in the very alien surroundings than he thought he could. He had very little to fear from his own government—or so he liked to entertain. When things pertained to Sherlock Holmes, it wasn't exactly an iron clad assumption. Mycroft's American friends had been kind enough to point that out. But he trusted Church thus far, nothing he'd said or done undermining that small and hard to obtain confidence. Truthfully, it might have been as much curiosity as anything. He wanted to know more with a rarely felt interest. Nothing quite got his attention like some previously unknown piece to Sherlock's life in all the times without him.

John sipped as Church pulled out files, knowing the drill well by now and waiting for the first of them to be passed his way. It turned out to be a red one, paperclips holding small clippings inside while the top tabs secured tight groups of pages. The label read "Moriarty, James" and felt colder than pressboard should in his hands.

"My first large assignment in the Firm was in trying to undermine and infiltrate Moriarty's syndicate. Spent years on it. A bit of an obsession, really. So when I heard the man had died, it was a bit of a professional blow."

John nodded, flipping through pages of investigative profiling, known aliases, connections, maps with locations and photos of sightings. Clippings from his trial were clinging to papers that seemed to outline the multiple break-ins. There was an autopsy report in the very back. John felt the air leave him in a gentle sigh, relief running through him with the very real proof of his death sitting in his hands. Mycroft had always said he was dead but never what happened to the body. There was closure in reading the weight of his internal organs. Some deaths couldn't be faked. He paused at the notes jotted in by the coroner. "Brain tumor?"

Church nodded. "Frontal lobe. They said it likely affected his understanding of reality."

That was a gross understatement of the man's psychosis. John could not spare the slightest bit of pity for the villain. "So Moriarty was a sick man in more than one way. Thanks and all but you said you had a case for Sherlock."

Church passed over another file, this one navy blue with much less pinned and tabbed inside. The label read "Moriarty, James". Even without opening it, he knew he wasn't going to like whatever was inside.

"Two brothers of the same name. One went on to be a Colonel; one chose to venture into crime. Sociopathy can run in families but by all accounts only the older brother exhibited the dangerous behavior that lead to his lifestyle. James Moriarty the younger was, by all accounts, a very accomplished solider who was recognized for his bravery and was honorably discharged back in 2007."

John listened as he opened the file. The photo was from his military ID, the face shown there resembling that of the madman John knew but by no more than one would expect from family. There was far less on the man that intrigued him in the file, the reason for leave described as "medical" on the discharge papers. "Wounded, was he?" John asked, searching for any death certificate among the pages.

"Diagnosed with a brain tumor," Church said quietly. "Frontal lobe."

John's heart stopped for a moment, sweat collecting against his palms. He stared up at Church whose schooled expression belayed nothing. "That sort of deductive leap doesn't require the help of Sherlock Holmes," John criticized, feeling anxiety prickling under his skin.

"No, I agree. The man who died on the roof of Saint Barts was assuredly James Moriarty the younger. This isn't new information. Sherlock knows this as well."

"He _what_?"

Church put a hand up to stall John's surprise and anger. "Sherlock knows he dealt with the younger on the roof but there is no way to know whether or not it was ever anyone else you had dealings with or if it was the younger brother from the start." He leaned back in his chair, hands crossed in his lap. "Colonel Sebastian Moran was an army friend of the younger brother. His presence in the organization leaves us some clues. We can tell from the evidence that at some point the younger brother undertook cosmetic surgery to adopt his brother's face and identity. It could be the older brother was killed at some point and rather than let the syndicate crumble, the younger brother took up the call to crime. It's all speculation outside the fact that the older brother never resurfaced after the younger took his own life and left Moran in charge. By all accounts both Moriarty brothers are dead."

John took a deep breath, swallowing down the surge of emotions the news had resurrected from inside him. "So… you're saying it's likely that between his discharge and the time he met us, we were dealing with _Colonel_ James Moriarty the whole time, that there weren't two Moriarty's running around, pulling a double act to get one over on us all."

"Yeah, something like that." Church leaned forward, fingers tapping against the top of a third pressboard folder—a green one. "A certain case has… lead us to consider other options, though. And it's a case I need you and Sherlock in on due to your… unique understanding of the situation.

John stared at the file, Church's palm obscuring the label as he kept his hand against it. "Is it him?" he found himself asking.

Church paused before exhaling evenly. "We don't know," he said. The green file slid across the desk with poignant hesitation, his fingertips not leaving till John's pulled it too far away.

_McCarthy, James_ it read in a slightly comforting way. John opened it against his lap, feeling any comfort not so much as wash away as burn by the heat of his blood. The man could have been James Moriarty's twin. That face was forever engrained in his memory as the face of the devil and every dark thing that hid in the shadows and under children's beds.

"Uncanny, isn't it?" Church remarked.

"Impossible," John conceded. He flipped through the case file, nearly ripping a few of the pages. "So, what, there's three of them? The older brother's not really dead? What exactly are you trying to imply?"

Church sat back, quiet and calm, though the pinch of his brow said he was not unaffected by this final file's contents. "We don't know what it means or who he is. Could be an unfortunate likeness. Could be the older brother. Could mean he's partially guilty for everything that happened to you and Sherlock and the rest of London while they played their game and could be he retired from all that early on and is just your average ex-con. There's too much for it to possibly mean to say any one idea is more plausible than any other."

"_Jesus_." John closed the file, all three sitting in his lap like lead weights. His head hurt like a hangover with a cold, acidic taste on his tongue. "So you need Sherlock to…to check this guy out? Find out who and what he is?"

"In a sense." Church picked up his mostly forgotten coffee, sipping through a clenched jaw. "There's been a murder in Ross. James McCartney is a suspect in the murder of his father to which he claims he's innocent. There's nothing outwardly difficult about the investigation, nothing local authorities can't piece together eventually, but several factors I believe make this something that should be brought to Sherlock's attention."

John nodded, setting the files back on his desk. "Forget the murder. As soon as Sherlock hears Moriarty might be alive, he'll have us on the first train."

"No."

John stopped short, caught off guard by the stern tone in the other man's voice. "No? What do you mean _no_?"

Church took a shallow breath, his gaze intense but far from unforgiving. "I need this to be a blind study. We have no evidence against him except for Sherlock's expert opinion. I need Sherlock to come to the conclusion on his own. If he's biased, it could throw any possible case we could have against him out the window."

"He's going to take one look at-!"

"He'll never meet James McCarthy. He'll have his statement and that's all. The man will remain in custody and special attention will be made to remove any photos or likenesses."

"This is ridiculous! Have you any idea the potential danger he could be in if this Moriarty is _our_ Moriarty?"

Church nodded. He knew. It didn't matter.

John felt his blood pressure spike as he fisted his fingers against his thighs. "An open and shut murder is not going to get Sherlock Holmes on a train to Ross."

"Then I suppose you have your work cut out for you, Dr. Watson." Church said as collected his colored files, shifting them even against the desk. "You might be able to sleep at night knowing Sebastian Moran is behind bars waiting for trial, but even if the right Moriarty is dead and buried, what sort of horrors do you think may await you if James McCartney was his brother?"


	5. Chapter 5

The ride from Paddington Station to Gloucester wasn't long enough for much more than a nap but certainly long enough for Sherlock Holmes to piss off several in their train car. John smiled politely in the face of their fellow passenger's scowls, offering the occasional shoulder shrug when Sherlock had earned the disdain and leveling them with an even stare when they seriously needed to just let it go. Sherlock had a case-not the most interesting case on the books thus far but a murder with no witnesses was at least something to look forward to. As well as other things.

"So I don't get a single clue what the other case is?" Sherlock asked over steepled fingertips. The sunlight made his dark hair seem brighter, hints of red rarely seen now catching on the rays that spilled over his face in ribbons through the half-drawn shades.

John shook his head as he watched him, himself shaded in the seat opposite. "If the only way to get you to take this case is to offer a mystery within a mystery, then you're just going to have to be extra observant and try and figure out what it is."

With an arch of his brow, Sherlock looked off into the ether, mind churning with its cogs and gears in smooth and rapid motion not unlike their transport.

It had been surprisingly simple to convince Sherlock to take the case. John felt a slight guilty for not explaining in detail the reason for his own interest—a matter that affected them both greatly—but he hadn't had to deceive him. Sherlock knew John knew something he didn't, that there was something more to their journey to Ross-on-Wye than just the murder of Charles McCarthy, and that he had received the information from a secret source that wished to remain anonymous. Sherlock loved games as much as he did mysteries and in the end it had been too appealing to reject a fourth time. It wasn't true manipulation when Sherlock was more than happy to allow himself to be coerced; the hard-headed detective never did anything he didn't in some respect want to do. It certainly helped to have that much off John's conscious at any rate. He felt more than enough unease for the both of them at the possibilities lurking in the existence of James McCarthy.

John sipped his coffee to still his anxieties as the train hurried them off through the countryside, poking at some notes on his laptop as the silence dragged on for once, the next stop not for quite some time. His e-mail was full of late correspondence from his work fellows trying to catch up on his patient notes, medical opinions shared alike on the trickier cases that tested a person's time against medical technology. If Sherlock had ever cared to learn as much about anatomy and biology as he had chemistry, John rather thought he'd enjoy some of the medical mysteries that came through his inbox. Lupus, lupus, it was never lupus. Celiac was getting to be rather too common an initial diagnoses as well. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor sods avoiding pasta and beer over IBS or CFS. Disease was an interesting villain, a criminal to the proper function of the human body. When Sherlock had been gone, these cases had been his own personal means of reliving the thrill of discovery, that race against time with lives on the line. He still enjoyed it no matter what form it took. Having both in his life again felt right.

Despite the hospital's assurance he could take leave whenever he needed to, he wasn't at all surprised they still wanted him to look over some items when he could. Understandable. His patients didn't stop being his just because Sherlock had a case.

And neither did Billie stop being Sherlock's assistant just because John was in tow.

The blonde smiled at John as she took her seat next to Sherlock again, another thigh hugging, knee length skirt gaining a brief glance as she sat with her knees pressed and ankles crossed. "Still not a fan of those new loos," she said, toes tapping against the floor with tell-tale nerves. At least the girl had the sense to know she was a third wheel. "Now, uh… I've been over the case file DI Lestrade had sent over from the local force. Have to say, I'm still not really sure why this is a job for Sherlock."

Sherlock tucked his nose below the bridge of his hands. "You're not the only one. Charles McCarthy was found murdered near Boscombe Pool around seven o'clock Sunday by Patience Turner who earlier witnessed a heated argument between father and son in that very location not half an hour before. The son, James McCarthy, was found with his father's blood on his hands and has no alibi for the time spent between the time Patience saw them arguing and when she found the father dead. The land is private, leased to the McCarthy's by the Turners, making it improbable any one else was around to have committed the crime. Charles has no known enemies and there's no clear motive leaving nothing but a dispute and a dead man less than an hour apart."

Billie nodded, following along on her tablet computer—a purchase Sherlock hadn't needed to insist upon too heavily. The young woman seemed quite keen to use it, the flicks and pokes of her fingers as efficient as a spinster at her loom. "So, yeah, I mean… looks pretty cut and dry. The son killed the father in the heat of their argument. I mean, this James guy is doing a pretty shit job defending himself. He says he's not guilty but he won't even disclose what the argument was about. According to his statement, he just got into town that day and happened upon his dad in the woods where the argument started. He walked away and came back when he heard him call out to find him already dead."

"And yet if it were so simple, why would we get an anonymous tip to investigate it?" Sherlock smirked faintly behind his hands, letting them slowly drop to his belly. "There are a few things we can consider. The argument is an interesting piece of missing information for starters. The only reason not to disclose the information is to protect either himself or someone else from being incriminated by it. With no witnesses to the exact nature of the argument, he could easily have lied to lead suspicion off himself but instead he chose to say nothing. It seems to suggest that he is, in fact, protecting someone else—guilt by omission in this case as he is not willing to disclose the conversation that would point out the true killer."

Billie worried her bottom lip as she considered this. John imagined at her desk she probably had several half-chewed pens and pencils.

"He already has lied, though; hasn't he?" John asked. He closed the lid to his laptop, giving the sleuths his full attention as they readily gave him theirs. "James said he just got into town when he came across his father in the woods, right? So where's his suitcase? If he arrived in the evening, surely he would have packed something of an overnight bag at least. And what are the odds that, if this area is as secluded as the reports say, he just so happened upon his father in the middle of it on his way to the house? If he's innocent, imagine the coincidences in place for him to be there at the right time and place someone else was going to murder his father."

Sherlock nodded, the small spark in his eyes glistening at the sound of John employing some of his own methods. "And yet someone wants us here, making me all the more curious as to how we're going to prove James McCarthy is innocent."

And that he was or wasn't the man who strapped a Semtex vest to John's chest to dance with Sherlock Holmes. John tried not to let the idea pinch his expression or flinch across his face. There was more than a small amount of consolation in knowing the man in question was currently under arrest. McCarthy wasn't calling the shots this time—if he ever had been in the past in regards to them. Guilty of being Moriarty until proven innocent seemed the most cautious way to approach the unique situation. But with iron bars and armed guards standing far between the killer and the detective, the suffocating danger was little more than an asthmatic twinge.

Billie looked between the two of them, her lips still caught between her teeth. "Not to be a bitch or anything, but just so we're all on the same page, Lestrade wanted me to remind you that John isn't here in any official capacity. I get that you two are used to being a team and all and I don't mind discussing this stuff between the three of us but once we get there, I'd really like there not to be any confusion with the local force."

Sherlock said nothing, moved nothing. He was off in his own little world, passing glimpses of it reflected in his eyes as it rolled passed the window in the guise of trees and valleys. John hated it when he checked out in public. It generally meant it was up to him to make his excuses and usher out the unnecessary presence the detective had all but forgotten about. This time it was the two of them: himself and Billie and the not entirely unspoken tension of their situation. John supposed he couldn't blame her. This was her big break: working with the one and only Sherlock Holmes. Nothing worse than being asked to replace someone that wasn't really gone. She wasn't there to simply make the tea and take messages when John muscled his way in on a case—she was the partner, she was the officer of the law.

Not that John wouldn't just as soon leave her at the next station and forget all about contracts and legality.

"Well, I'm not an official _legal_ presence," John admitted, hands folded against his lap, trying not to grimace though his smile felt hard. "I don't think anyone would mind Sherlock bringing in his own medical examiner, though. Especially one who happens to be taking a quick holiday in the same village at the same time."

Billie nodded, a bit of lipstick clinging to the tips of her teeth. "Okay, that's fine. That works. I'm not medically trained so… Just, well, this is my first time working with both of you so.. just want to make sure we get started on the right foot so we don't end up stepping on each other's feet. Don't get me wrong; I have a lot of respect for you, it's just that this is my job."

John sipped his coffee, eyes flickering back over to Sherlock who seemed to have divorced himself from their conversation entirely. Lucky git. "Believe me; I understand. No hard feelings. This is your case; I'll make sure to stay out of your way."

"Thank you, John."

"No, not at all," he said with his most charming of tones and smiles.

He did not like the woman.

And if the way she smiled back was any indication, Billie didn't care too much for him either.

The Red Lion Inn was a lovely stone building with its white-painted face looking out on the banks of the Wye. Everything was the sort of green that made John breathe deeper, the smell of the river and the moist lands around them inviting him pleasantly far, far away from the sights of London. No paparazzi, no loud traffic, no scrambling hoards, no hurried voices clamoring at all hours. Moriarty be damned; it felt good to travel outside the city limits where the world was more than cabs, culture, and crowds.

It felt good to be somewhere that didn't have so many memories tied to it—the good and the bad.

"Dull," Sherlock said, eyeing a flier for otter spotting with photos taken from outside the Beer Garden. Billie looked similarly impressed with images of stones jutting out of the countryside, arms crossed against her beige cardigan as she toed the cobblestone walk.

John rolled his eyes. "Sorry no one considered you when they decided what would make good tourist attractions. Not everywhere can have a Jack the Ripper walk," he said, carrying his bag towards the front desk where a handsome looking young woman waited with an open smile.

"Holmes?" she asked, the tip of her pen tapping against her ledger.

John nodded, putting his bag down at his feet. The sounds from the bar were a comforting rumble of good cheer and the smells from the kitchen carried right up under his nose with yeast rolls and peppered gravies. No, he was most definitely going to enjoy this as much as possible. "Right. Should have two rooms for us."

The woman smiled, producing a pair of keys almost before he'd finished. "I have you in the twin and we upgraded the double to our honeymoon suite," she said, passing the two tinkling items to him as she looked past towards his companions. "My, but they're a sweet couple."

John stalled, looking over his shoulder to where Sherlock and Billie were still standing, side by side, eyeing with considerable disapproval the local idea of fun.

"You see a lot of couples here. We do weddings, you know. I can always tell when two people are going to enjoy a happy life together."

"Oh, you can, huh?" John set his jaw, clearing his throat. "Which, uh, key is it to the twin?"

The smiling woman pointed out the one with the yellow flower charm.

"Ta. Billie," John turned and, gaining her attention, tossed her the key in an underhand arc. She caught it in her cupped hands, giving him an odd look. "Your accommodations await," He explained. "Us too, Sherlock." He jingled the remaining key as much for Sherlock to see as the woman. "Let's go. I'd like to unpack before we get started."

Sherlock nodded simply, a slight smile in the corner of his lips, as he took up his bags and walked towards the wide stairs to the rooms above. Billie went ahead of him as he stood and waited while John gave the attending woman one big smile of his own. "Thanks again. If the constable comes, let him know we've arrived and to wait in the bar if he can."

Dumbstruck and ruby red, the woman nodded mutely as John picked up his things and joined Sherlock at the stairs.

"You did that on purpose."

"Did what?" John asked, feigning innocence with as much believability as a politician.

Sherlock chuckled, eyes half closed in a rare smile, no pity spared for mere men and mortals.


	6. Chapter 6

John wasn't sure what he expected from a honeymoon suite, but the cozy room with its deep wood, four poster bed in flannel was rather far from his expectations. It was quaint with its country cottage charm, reminding the solider of nights spent visiting his grandparents with thin sheets and thinner duvets piled high with no less than five quilted throws in white, pale pink, and yellow. The white walls were naked save for an old CRT TV mounted to the wall, bulky and out of place as the only spot of black in a room whitewashed like an overexposed Polaroid. White lace hung from the bed's open canopy with the same frail cloth framing the small windows set against a west facing wall; white throw pillows were stacked against white pillows with embroidered lace eyelets. The suite looked far more like a pensioner's lodgings than a place for love's consummation.

Sherlock dropped his suitcase on the floor by the bed before sitting down on it, giving it a quick bounce test with his hands splayed against the clean linens. "Eleven years at least," he gauged, raising up just slightly to fall back harder. "Bit soft but it'll do."

John watched him, smirking slightly as the taller man leaned back on his elbows, taking in his surroundings in a few quick glances, everything committed to memory on impulse. "So. Honeymoon suite?" He left his bag next to Sherlock's, coming to lean against the bed's post with his arms crossed.

The detective didn't bother looking at him, inspecting traces of damp on the ceiling instead. "Yes, of course. Of all the available rooms in a place like this, which one do you think runs the lesser risk of having a squeaky mattress and a door that doesn't close fully or lock?"

John chuckled, leaning his head against the post as he enjoyed the quiet air, eyes closed where the white still shone through his lids. He could hear the footsteps of everyone on their floor or feel the heavy thumps vibrating across the floorboards. Hardly intimate, hardly even private, but the door did lock and the bed didn't squeak and it was warm and nice and shared.

There was a sweet smelling breeze blowing in through the cracked window, the lace curtains rolling gently to the twinkle of a distant wind chime. John breathed deep, listening and feeling, letting his eyes stay closed as his other senses enjoyed the newness of being away from the city. It was rather like receiving an unexpected shoulder rub: one was never really cognizant of how much they needed something until it was set upon them. John needed a holiday. John needed to get away to refocus and unwind. "When this is over, we should stay a few days," he said, rolling his head back till his neck stretched through the kinks of their journey.

Sherlock hummed a vague response. The room hummed along with the clamor of guests downstairs.

John rolled his back along the post as he sat on the bed beside his partner, hand finding his along the duvet and giving it a squeeze. "Maybe a cruise," he said, stroking his thumb over his knuckles. "Safari. Backpack across Eastern Europe."

"Something wrong with London?" Sherlock asked.

"No, nothing; London is home."

Sherlock nodded, laying down with his legs hanging off the bed. John watched him, smiling slightly at the dark curls that lifted from his face as his piercing multicolored eyes searched the empty space before them. John leaned over him, kissing his lips chastely. It was easier to do here; they hadn't started a life as flatmates and friends here. They weren't laying upon the bed on which he'd made love to Mary or sharing a room with enough medically supported nudity to make exposed flesh nothing to bat an eye at. Sherlock's lips tasted sweeter in fading country sunlight. His features were like his city: hard, linear, and planned before sculpted. The contrasting simplicity of white cotton and summer air was like adding chocolate to coffee, taking the bitterness out of one and tempering the sweetness in the other. It didn't suit Sherlock so much as it accentuated him. John let his lips steal a further kiss as he hovered, smiling to himself, losing himself.

Sherlock smiled like he could read it all in his lips. "I suppose a holiday wouldn't be too disagreeable. But this isn't one," he said, cool fingers curling along the nape of John's neck. "This is a case—two cases as you've lead me to believe. Let's not lose focus."

James McCarthy, how could John forget? He held himself up on his forearms, face remaining inches-centimeters-from Sherlock's. "I'm not here with Scotland Yard; I'm here with you."

The detective chuckled lightly, a chesty rumble that stirred more than mirth. "So you are."

"I know you heard her on the train."

"I did."

"And?"

"And what?"

John sighed, raising up to a lean with his legs curled under him. "And you realize we do actually have a bit of a problem, yes?"

Sherlock scowled dismissively, his hand waving aside the question. "Your problem; not mine. I did tell you not to resign."

"I didn't exactly think they'd go and replace me."

"Well, they did. I didn't." Sherlock looked up at him, serious as stone with his cupid's bow drawn to fire. "She's my assistant," he said. "You're my partner."

John smiled at him, loving him with every whisper of wind that stirred his curls on the chime's choral breeze. He stretched out beside him, lips returning to their purchase to stir sparks beneath his skin. Sherlock answered the simple kiss with an apprenticed return, welcoming him without hesitation though his lips were still unfamiliar in their present occupation. He tried for John. He mimicked and echoed and assimilated everything, challenging for the lead at times but easily pressed to remit. John loved the zing of his lips and the bitterness of coffee beyond, tongue teasing and pressing where unschooled sounds of enjoyment spilled through to be lapped upon as fuel. Sherlock's body was one of the worst traitors John had ever met, void of any real competency in disguising pleasure—as poorly prepared to be overwhelmed as the man had been in the face of true fear. In this it didn't take much to overwhelm him. He arched when John's hand slipped past his jacket to ghost across that spot on his waist once discovered but never implemented. John chased each breathy groan with another kiss, another exploratory grope against the buttons of his shirt as his hand took back the sight of him with knowledge of every peek and gully. Sherlock gripped him by his own shirt, tugging enough to loosen the tuck from his jeans.

It was different here, easier in the pensioner's honeymoon suite. In Ross-on-Wye with a change of scene, a body anxious after travel and with-god help him-with Moriarty perhaps still alive. The threat of him made John's blood boil with as much lust as it did with rage. Moriarty could take this away, Moriarty could put an end to everything he fought long and hard for. Complacency was unacceptable. God help him for the thrill the thought of the madman in their lives again brought him, accompanying every tremble beneath his hands with power and fear. Danger in the shadows, a limitation, something to hold him accountable for every mistake and misstep that could break them beyond the hesitancy of fulfillment. John could have him. John could lose him. He could watch Sherlock squirm at the end of a hook as likely as he could against his sheets. Some things were once again out of his control in a way that challenged him to rise to the occasion.

Sherlock moaned against his tongue as John settled his thigh between the detective's legs, pressing right into the part of him where his hips ground down on instinct and bucked in surprise. John teased with the whole of himself, sucking, touching, thrusting while their clothes rumpled and their vision blurred.

"_J-John_," Sherlock gasped, lost and scrambling for breadcrumbs, pulling at John, dinging his fingers into him, encasing him in his long limbs while his breath panted between kisses and against his ear.

John felt the flush throughout his body, the warm weight low in his belly, the swirling of desire he'd tried not to worry about in his private, cautious thoughts. It wasn't another man, it was Sherlock. Even as he could feel him against his thigh, the bulk of his bulge quite trapped but hardly tamed, John did not feel any lessening in his own desire. It was in the sounds Sherlock made that wordlessly exulted John like a deity. It was in the twitching fingers and frightless abandon that waited patiently to know and be known. Sherlock was trust and love and _his_ and he was proud of the body that encased all the things that made him Sherlock and of the ways John could make him beg. He spared a hand to touch himself, feel his body's own honest disregard for his lover's gender and bit his lip not to add to Sherlock's breath-filled bubble.

The door rattled with the three short knocks, its hinges not as secure as the lock upon the handle. John went perfectly still, Sherlock's own response less than worried as he stalled but let his heavy breaths follow through unhindered.

"The-uh.. The constable is waiting in the bar area," a woman called from the other side. From the sound of her, it was the same woman who had been attending at the desk. "Shall I..ah... tell him you'll be down?"

John wanted to tell her to piss off but Sherlock beat him to the reply with a much less irritated "Yes, thanks," managing to sound perfectly normal even as John watched his chest rise and fall with heavy breaths.

"Alright, I'll, um..." she said nothing more as her footsteps creaked away and fell quickly down the stairs.

John rolled over, face pressed to the duvet as Sherlock sat up with a great sigh and slid off the bed, the mattress bouncing John gently with his slight weight now gone. The soldier's groan was muffled but colored with enough vulgarities that his displeasure was far from unknown. He was five breaths short of kicking his legs and flailing his fists. Grown men didn't have hissy fits.

"I'll go see about the constable with Billie," Sherlock said, the rustle of his clothing signaling his quick reassessing of the encounter's damage. "You, well... take care of anything you need to while we're busy."

"No, no, gimme a minute. I'm coming too. Just, ya know... need a minute."

Sherlock's smirk carried on a short hum, the mattress dipping once more as he sat, fingers suddenly carding through John's short hair. John relaxed quickly, his pulse calming and the ache of his groin settling with a far less than satisfactory conclusion. He liked the smell of the washing-up powder the inn used. He liked the way Sherlock's fingers felt on his scalp even more.

"What brought that on?" Sherlock asked, lacking any accusation but full of curiosity.

John wasn't sure how to answer that. Hesitancy be damned when the world's most dangerous criminal mind might still be alive. And second base had felt wonderful. "You just... looked too good not to kiss."

"Hm." Sherlock followed the lines of his cowlicks, mapping out his hair growth pattern in the paths of his fingertips. "I had wondered if you found me sexually appealing as well as aesthetically attractive. I take it by your prone position that the answer is yes."

"You don't get points for deducing I can get it up with my boyfriend when I'm half hard and still buzzing from snogging the every-loving fuck out of you."

That earned him a chuckle before the quiet set in, nothing but soft breathing and their own heartbeats pulsing in their heads for several moments. John could almost hear words from the downstairs bar rather than an indistinct murmur of voices. He wondered if Sherlock's voice had carried as easily. He wondered if it was wrong not to care.

Downstairs Constable Wiggins was at no loss for company. Billie had beaten them to the bar, her attention held rapt by the young officer as he was heard to go over a few not unfamiliar details involving the case. He was young, probably close to her own age. His nervous smiles and the way he kept his chin ducked and his eyes raised made it all too easy to note he fancied Sherlock's fair assistant. The way she kept her arms crossed on the table and her face calm but insincere made it equally obvious she was only interested in the case. John almost felt sorry for the awkward young man. They were shoes everyone filled at some point in their lives. The man rose as Sherlock approached him, the customary handshake shared by all as the man turned somehow even more nervous in the consulting detective's shadow.

"Ah... well, then. I uh.. I guess you'll want to be visiting the crime scene," he stuttered, chewing on his lip. "Mind you, we've been over it ourselves but if you think there's something we may have missed."

"That's precisely what I think," Sherlock said, smiling with his usual closed lip smile. "Don't take it personally. If you hadn't missed something, I wouldn't be here."

The constable grimaced but gave a firm nod. "Right... Uh, well, I've got a car waiting for you and Inspector Bradstreet if you'd like to follow me. I can answer any questions you have on the way." His brown eyes slipped to John, flickering towards the ceiling before locking back on Sherlock. "DI Lestrade only mentioned sending two detectives."

Billie smiled, leaning in on the conversation. "Dr. Watson is here as a medical consultant on the case. He's not with Scotland Yard as such."

"Ah. Apologies. DI Lestrade said you'd probably be on hand."

John smirked sardonically, hearing much more clearly '_Lestrade warned us you might tag along_'. The constable fumbled in his pocket for a second before pulling out a long, black lanyard with a short, boxy flash drive at the end. He held it out by the band for John to take, coiling it down into his palm. "These are the autopsy reports on Charles McCarthy," he said. "You'll probably want to get familiar with these while we're out at the scene."

"Actually, I thought I'd come with you three."

Constable Wiggins shook his head. "Sorry, law enforcement officers only."

John set his jaw, feeling his left hand twitch at his side.

Sherlock cleared his throat. "That's fine. By the time we're done at the crime scene, I'm sure John will have some excellent conclusions of his own to tie this case up perfectly." He clasped John's shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze. "Car's out front, is it?"

Wiggin's nodded and Sherlock took the lead, busy steps and long legs taking him more than halfway out the room by the time the other two realized they were meant to follow.

John closed his fist around the flash drive, the edges of it biting into his palm.

"Bring ya a pint?" a waitress asked, empty tray in hand and service smile on her face.

A pint wasn't going to fix the half of it.


	7. Chapter 7

John was far from idle while the officers were out playing in the woods. Pint of ale sweating against a napkin, laptop buzzing on the table beside it, he found himself easily engrossed in the reports outlining the physical state of the late Charles McCarthy. He took a corner table in the bar so as not to bother the other patrons with close up photos of their neighbor's corpse. It honestly wasn't bad; a single blow to the right temporal lobe, a clear strike from a head-on attacker with a blunt object heavy enough to crack his skull. There was a strange interlocking indentation against his cheek just below the large impact bruise but all in all, for a dead man, Mr. McCarthy looked pretty good. With as many crime scenes and corpses as John had been privileged to see, this one rated an easy two on the squick scale. But it was still the face of someone's friend and he liked to be conscious of that much even if as evidence he was hardly concerned with secrecy. Small town, quaint villages like these, everyone knew everyone and he suspected not a soul was ignorant of so much as a single clue associated with the murder. He wasn't sure if ultimately that made their job easier or simply convoluted. Whatever gossip and opinion could be said about the circumstances around the murder, John was at least somewhat pleased to be given the one body of evidence that was indisputable. Knowing Sherlock's methods, he was more than adequately equipped to make several deductive assumptions of his own.

Assumption One – The murder weapon was something brought to the scene of the crime.

John could find no mention of trace flora or fauna reported when the wound was inspected by the coroner. A rock, a stick, any weapon found in the wild would have left dirt or moss or some sort of natural deposit imbedded in the body. The killer brought his weapon into the woods with him, in that case, and disposed of it after—likely in Bascombe pool or in the bush. John couldn't help but think back to his initial question to Sherlock: where was James McCarthy's luggage? He made sure to highlight that question to bring up again. He felt sure the missing presence of one was linked to the other.

Assumption Two – The victim knew his killer.

There was no bruising to Charles McCarthy's hands or arms to denote a physical struggle and to get close enough to strike him head on, there would likely need to have been some kind of relationship-otherwise he'd have turned to escape, the blow landing on the back of his head and not the front. By all accounts, he knew his killer and the strike had come as a surprise. There was a slight possibility that the murder weapon had been thrown at him from a distance but the lack of any such object found at the scene made such a scenario unlikely. Evidence from the field would likely support one conclusion over the other.

Assumption Three – The murderer was left handed.

This deduction was one of John's own and one of which he felt particularly proud. Standing face to face, a right handed man would swing and strike his opponent on the left—Charles McCarthy's wound was on the right. While it was possible for a right handed man to swing and hit someone on that same side, it was far less likely outside an opportunistic swipe in a brawl.

James Moriarty was left handed. John itched to know if James McCarthy was too.

While it seemed Sherlock felt the true mystery was how the almost obviously guilty man could possibly be innocent, John was much more concerned with their other purpose in Ross. Being Moriarty was a crime far more heinous than any single murder as far as John was concerned but was unfortunately not one recognized by the justice system. Even though Moriarty was suspected of being the leader of his own crime syndicate, there was no crime to connect him to that could put him in prison. Every illegal thing they had proof of—a list which was embarrassingly small—could be attributed to the dead man on the roof. They needed Charles McCarthy's murder to send the man to prison for the lives and money that had been lost within his professional capacity. John hated red tape and the thin line of legal prosecution. Even if he couldn't prove it yet, even as he failed to devise some way of knowing, John could not help but think of James McCarthy as the man he had tried to take down with him at the pool—as _his_ Moriarty. The very least of what that man deserved was a prison sentence. He'd rather him share the fate of Prometheus.

He flexed his hand under the table before squeezing it around the cool glass of his pint, sipping his ale to wash the bad taste from his mouth that always accompanied thoughts of _him_. He recommenced scrolling down the medical report for any last details, puzzling over the imprints on the man's cheek when all else seemed cut and dry. If Billie thought leaving him behind with a coroner's report was akin to shifting him out of the case, she was going to be very disappointed when she came back. He was going to make sure of that.

A second glass of ale set itself on the table, painted nails flashing red in the blur past his reading vision. "Is this seat taken?" the woman asked.

John looked up, forgetting for a moment that he was still sitting in a public place. The tin ale signs against the unfinished oak walls with the black knots brought him back, though. The young woman standing on the other side of the small table wore tight jeans and a ruffled, sleeveless blouse in lavender with a V-neck cut low enough to showcase the shadow of her cleavage and a long gold chain around her neck to make sure you knew where to look. John glanced around quickly to spy several empty tables all around him. He cleared his throat. "Ah, not taken. No. Sort of busy at the moment though."

The woman smiled demurely, taking her seat across from him. "You're with detective Holmes, aren't you? Doctor Watson?" she asked. "They told me you were investigating Mr. McCarthy's murder. I'm Patience Turner."

Billie was going to _love_ this. John smiled and cleared his throat again to wipe it from his face. This was hardly the time or place for self congratulations. He closed the lid to his laptop. "You're the one who found the body," he said, the name uncommon enough to have settled nicely in his mental log of the case notes.

"Yes."

"And the one who witnessed the argument."

Patience nodded, sipping her ale as her eyes scanned the room. "I did, yes. I told the police everything but I thought… well, if Sherlock Holmes is involved, things must be more …complicate." She took a deep breath, trembling on the exhale. "He's not going to get Jim released, is he?"

There was fear in her face. John licked his lips, saddling up closer to the table as he leaned across towards her. "Sherlock's only job is making sure the right person goes to jail for this. Could be Jim; could be someone else," he admitted, though she was far from alone in her desire for it to be him. "Are you worried something will happen if Jim is released?" It was a leading question but fortunately he wasn't a barrister.

Her flinch said more than enough.

With a long drink and a deep exhale, Patience settled in with her elbows on the table, clasped hands pillowing her chin. "There's probably not a single person in this village that doesn't remember Jim. Not fondly either. We used to play together when we were kids, though. Our properties were close enough that we ran into each other all the time. Practically our own little gang: the McCarthys, the Turners and the Morans."

John felt his jaw drop with the auditory equivalent of tunnel vision. "Wait, _Moran_? As in-"

"Sebastian?" Patience smiled. "What can I say? I've been following the news from London pretty closely these past few months. That's how I recognized you, Dr. Watson." Her smile faltered slightly. "He was a good kid. It was their fault he got mixed up in that sort of thing. James and Jim were... well, they were evil. You'd find dead things in the woods but they wouldn't just be dead they'd be… and you knew it was them. One of them, at least. James wasn't so bad sometimes but Jim, he was… he scared me. I'd tell the other boys—Seb and Patrick—but they just thought it was fun. Boys will be boys, yeah? Not Jim. Sebastian went off with James and Patrick to join the army after school, I got married and Jim disappeared but once in a while you'd see him in the wood and you could see in his smile that he was nothing short of the devil himself."

John glanced around the room, feeling watched and anxious even as his mind called to remind him that this was only news to him. Small village, tight community; everyone knew the score but him. "So you grew up with James McCarthy—you knew Jim Moriarty?"

Patience nodded, another long drink of her draft calming her obvious nerves. "I saw his face once on the news. I'd heard the name before but it didn't mean anything. I know that face, though. And I remember thinking 'I knew it. I knew he'd grow up to be a monster'. I thought he was supposed to be dead but then… there he was. In the woods."

"And you didn't hear what they were arguing about?"

Patience frowned. "If you were the father of a madman, what _wouldn't_ you yell at your son for?" She spared a glace around the room, picking at the gold chain around her neck. "He was furious is all I remember. And Jim wasn't exactly taking it. He'd be all smiles one minute and then shouting right back at him in the next. I don't think they ever got along but this was.. it was different."

"So you watched them for a while, did you?" John asked.

"Long enough to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy. Soon as I saw it really was him, I ran. I was so flustered that I ended up running in the wrong direction though and I had to pass by again on my way back home. That was when I found them—only this time one of them was dead. I got on my cell and… well, here we are."

"Here we are." John repeated, licking his lips as he considered. "I'm guessing Jim knows you're the witness. If he gets out, if somehow it's proven he didn't do this—"

"—he'll kill me," she finished. "I know he will. He'll kill me and just up and vanish all over again and this time there won't be anything left here to bring him out of hiding."

John nodded, lips pursed. He doubted it would be any consolation to tell her this might not be the same Jim Moriarty as was spoken of in the news. The Jim she was afraid of was the man from her childhood. "Look… there's nothing I can do but present the facts but right now, I have to agree with the local police officers. I think he did it. But there's something I need to know and I think you're exactly the person I need to speak to about it. James McCarthy-the younger brother?-he was left-handed, yes?"

"Oh… now that you mention it, I think he might have been. I can remember playing cricket in the summer. He always stood left of the pitch."

A right handed person wasn't likely to shoot himself in the head with his left hand but still John had secretly hoped. "What about his older brother? Was Jim left handed?"

Patience shrugged. "Jim was whatever he wanted to be. I don't really know that I remember him favoring one hand over the other. Why, is it important?"

"Could be. I can find out through other means, though. Don't worry about it."

"Alright."

The conversation dwindled, silence resting in the limited space between them. John finished his drink and mimed for a pen. "Let me give you my number in case you can think of anything else."

Patience nodded, pulling her purse off the back of the chair by its long handles. She unzipped the front pocket and pulled out a blue pen, watching as John scribbled his number out on a napkin.

"Any time of day, alright? We don't normally get much sleep when we're on a case so I mean it, any time."

"Got it." She slipped the napkin in the front pocket with the pen and slid off the tall seat, leaving her own half-finished glass on the table. "I'm sure we'll be in touch, Dr. Watson," she said and waved with a wiggle of her fingers as she walked out of the Red Lion Inn.

John sat back in his seat, running his own fingers over his chin, as he ran their conversation through his head to try not to forget a single word.

It was late by the time Sherlock and Billie returned, mud caked onto their shoes and shoulders slightly wet from a sudden rain. Dry, fed on pub snacks, and reclining in comfort in his pensioner's suite, John let his smile stretch unencumbered across his slightly smug face.

"Have fun did we, then?"

Billie's face said '_piss off_' whereas Sherlock had hardly paused as he strode into the room in a case-filled mania. He tossed his jacket on the bed and paced with fingers steepled at his chin while he moved in the limited space. He said nothing though his face was tight with concentration.

"He been like that long?" John asked.

Billie sighed, leaning in their open doorway. "Since we walked back from the crime scene. The whole time we were there he was nonstop but then he just clammed up and hasn't said a word since."

John smirked, shrugging his shoulders. "Yeah, he does that." Maybe it was the fact that she looked absolutely dreadful or that the rumble of her stomach carried right across the room. Maybe it was that he had gotten to speak to the only witness and had been building a pretty good case during the time she'd been sinking her high heels into the mud. Whatever the reason, John felt he owed the women some kindness. "Probably won't join us in the land of the living for a few minutes more if you want to get changed or grab a bite," he said. "I promise we won't solve it while you're out of the room."

Billie blinked in surprised regard. "Uh… that'd be great. Stall him long enough that maybe I can get a shower in there?"

"The way he is right now? Probably won't even need to be stalled. Do what you need to do; we'll wait here."

Her face warmed as she stood straight, rubbing at her forearm before pulling her purse around and fishing inside. "Well, while you wait, you might want to watch this." She held out her tablet, its leather case closed over the sensitive screen. "He had me record the investigation. Good thing too since it rained on us and the footprints probably were damaged afterwards. Probably more of a happy happenstance, though. I think what he really meant was to have a way to have you there."

John licked his lips as he took it, trying not to smile the wide, too pleased grin begging at the corners of his mouth. "I'll compare it to my notes from the body. Thanks."

Billie nodded, smiling as she backed out of the room. "I won't be more than half an hour."

"We'll be waiting," he promised. Whether he meant it before or not, he was certain he meant it now.

The assistant turned and headed to her own room, yellow flower charm dancing at the back of her key. John pulled the door shut behind her, eyes lost on the tablet to the beat of Sherlock's steps across the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

John thought nothing of the crime scene footage as he watched it on Billie's tablet. Sherlock was his usual self, spinning and dashing around the mud-made footprints with all the excitement of a two year old at the zoo while the sometimes stuttering movements of the 'camera' managed to maintain acceptable stability though still not unlike a shaky-cam horror movie. He was going to be mildly disappointed when they weren't attacked by zombies or a swamp monster. Billie's voice was much louder than all the other's but luckily she didn't say much as Sherlock rattled on instead. He was quick to point out the steps of the father and son, the way they were deeper, both men shifting in their steps with anger ("Fantastic!" Billie exclaimed and John pretended not to care that Sherlock colored as he smiled). He pointed out the retreating steps of the son, the even pace, the deep impressions of someone stomping away in rage and then, almost overlapping them, the quick steps of a man running back. Sherlock followed the son's footsteps into the woods while the audio caught Constable Wiggins asking Billie to drinks later with poor results. John wished he'd shut up with the small talk as Sherlock's call back to them was almost masked completely with one-sided flirting.

"He's innocent," Sherlock exclaimed, almost skipping his way back down into the muddy flood plain. "You can clearly see how he retreats just once and returns the same, that smear beside where the body was found being the mark made by his knees as he slid to the dead man's side."

"That's brilliant!" Billie said.

Only his hands visible on camera, the constable still managed looked annoyed. "His are the only footprints entering this area from that side and we can tell from the footprints that this was the direction Charles McCarthy was facing when he was attacked."

Sherlock paused only for a moment, his head tilting to view the large impression in the mud near the knee smear-the corpse's landing pattern. His expression was troubled, eyes growing more narrow as he seemed to consider, rethink, abandon and start again. He pulled his lips in tight, stepping back to view the larger picture, a motion Billie did not mirror. She kept the camera on Sherlock instead, not missing a single flicker across his pale face.

He started off towards the trees, ducking around them, the improvised dance awkwardly graceful over the soggy terrain. He asked questions like 'Is this where Patience would have stood?' and 'whose footsteps are these?' to which the replies were nearly obvious, most of it being in the police report. Sherlock was in the height of his element, working off so much and so little, weeding out the useful from the useless.

"Is he always like this?" the constable asked, whispering to Billie.

"Pretty much." There was not even the hint of criticism in her tone. "Isn't he amazing?"

John leaned back against the headboard, letting the tablet rest against his bent knees as his head tilted back, tongue feeling thick in his mouth as he swallowed and let the video continue on without too much interest in the rest of the investigation.

Fantastic. Brilliant. Amazing. In the first several months he'd known Sherlock, he hadn't been able to keep inside just how awesome he found the man's deductive powers to be. He could remember plain as day the quiet in the cab as Sherlock sat rather stunned at the compliment, the way he gave pause throughout the night as they continued, the way he blushed and flustered in his own quiet, reserved sort of way. John had been the only one to praise him, Lestrade's appreciation for him shown only in his belief in him as he criticized him openly for what he wasn't despite all the wonderful things he was. John wondered when exactly he became that same way.

He remembered Henry Knight more clearly than any other client, the way Sherlock's behavior had been completely unprofessional and downright rude. John had sat bored, eyes rolling in their sockets as Sherlock took the man's morning apart in every detail from stains and napkins, no longer impressed by what had been so impressive a year before and expecting more from the man who had never professed to be more than his own work. That had been before he'd lost him, in those twilight hours between wanting Sherlock to be more ordinary and simply wishing he was there. Somehow he'd never really picked back up the habit of telling him he was great. Like Lestrade, he showed his appreciation in believing in him. It wasn't the same. If the way Sherlock reacted to Billie's words was any indication, he was a little starved for that reassurance. His work had changed. Everything but his work was the way it was before or at least the way he wanted it to be. His public image as a consulting detective was still under construction and all the rules and regulations were being built and bent as needed. Sherlock could be an interesting creature in the face of change and little things like words, proof he had captivated his audience-a necessary component to genius-buffered him against all the things he couldn't alter. Sherlock could do without it, he was a very strong man who had built very tall, strong walls to defend himself, but if all it took was a few words of praise to make him happy and feel appreciated, then John could see no reason not to give him every complimentary word in the English language twice over.

It wasn't Billie's fault for still being in that beginning phase of astonishment—it was John's for becoming complacent with astonishing things.

Sherlock knew he was brilliant. Sherlock knew John thought he was fantastic, brilliant and amazing. But John had never shirked from telling a woman she looked beautiful after spending hours getting ready just to try and impress him or even first thing in the morning when her mascara had flaked black smudges under her eyes. No matter how many times Sherlock took a man apart or solved a case on almost nothing or got stumped and had to let it go, John wanted to be the one reassuring him that he was wonderful.

John took a deep breath before he realized the room had grown far too quiet. The video had stopped but more than that Sherlock had stopped pacing. He looked towards the foot-board, finding Sherlock standing still near the bed, looking at him with a slightly puzzled expression. There was no telling how long he'd been doing so.

"The second case," he said, arms clasped behind his back. "Is it us?"

John felt his hairline rise at the question, crossing his legs on the bed as he sat up. "Ah.. no. No, it's a proper case," he confessed.

"Oh." Sherlock almost looked disappointed at that, though perhaps it was reflected more at himself for getting it wrong. "You were thinking about me."

"Yeah."

"Not about the case."

"Nope."

"And?"

John licked his lips, his teeth following after. "And I was thinking how lucky I am. Brains, beauty, and the body of a slightly emaciated Greek statue."

Sherlock's scoff was more of a snicker, his cheeks coloring predictably. "Something has certainly gotten into you today. Not that I mind. It's distracting but… good."

"Distracting?" John couldn't help the one-sided smirk that tucked into his left cheek. "Still thinking about earlier?"

The detective shrugged with nonchalance, walking over to the side of the bed and leaning against the wall. He was all legs as he towered over him, looking down at his partner with his hands at his sides. "I'm not preoccupied by it but this whole thing is rather odd. An anonymous tip, a secret case, and you suddenly initiating a more physical element to our relationship within minutes of our arrival. It actually would have been a rather clever way to go about it: creating a case element to appeal to my interest in solving things. And it shows some attention to our previous discussions on the matter by relocating ourselves to a destination where falling into normal habits is less of a concern."

"We're not a case, Sherlock; we're a couple."

"Practically the same thing." He smiled with John's short chuckle, looking off at some unknown spot on the bed. "I don't think I said so at the time but I did enjoy that. Kissing hasn't been like that before and it was... good. I especially liked rutting against your thigh. You've already proven to be vastly superior to masturbation and since you are rather preoccupied with questions regarding what I want, I thought I should inform you with my educated response to the fact that I want more of that when convenient."

John tried not to let the blood rush straight to his face but the alternative destination would have been just as awkward. He cleared his throat as his hand tried to hide the blush along the back of his exposed neck. "Ah... yeah. Yes. I, uh... good. Very good. We'll do that. Thank you... for.. telling me..." He cleared his throat again. A double throat clear. He didn't have to look at Sherlock to know what face he was wearing now.

He looked anyway.

The laughing felt so good it hurt. Sherlock hid his eyes behind the shield of his hand as his rumbling baritone rolled under John's tenor. Forty was far too old to still be two blushing school boys but John didn't care and Sherlock never would. Whatever John had expected, a summation of Sherlock's favorite excerpts from their adventures in heavy petting had been far from it. He was at a loss for how else to have a grown-up discussion about what sorts of things were sexually acceptable but most of John's brain was still giggling because Sherlock said 'rutting'. They were hopeless and he loved them for it.

"Sorry," Sherlock said at last, still choking on his breath as his smile put deep creases along his face.

John shook his head, swallowing what he could of his own mirth as he wiped tears from his eyes. "No, no, I meant it. Thanks. I could tell and all but hearing you say it is good." He let his breath catch back up with him, still sighing to the tune of their laughter as the quiet returned. "I appreciate your honestly. I guess… I mean, if I'm honest myself, I was scared before. Of doing something to hurt our friendship or making you feel rushed or coerced into things. I'm not scared anymore. We've always just jumped right into everything and it's always worked out so... I just have to trust us rather than try to control us."

Sherlock cocked his head slightly as he regarded him. "What made you stop being afraid?"

"I thought of something even more terrifying."

"A life celibate?" Sherlock joked, fingers curled along the bed post at the foot of the bed as swung around to the open part of their room.

John shook his head, knees drawn with his arms resting over the tops. "A life without you."

The detective stopped, his back turned as he paused mid step into the grounds he'd earlier paced. His elbows bent, fingers likely steepled near his face as his head bent slightly. The dark curls were no longer wet and bounced with every minute movement. "The second case is dangerous?" he asked.

"I would have told you if it was." John hated the way the atmosphere changed almost immediately but Sherlock himself had switched over once more. This was case!Sherlock and case!Sherlock was busy. Something John had said had given him a clue and though John knew exactly what words they had been, how they had contributed to case!Sherlock's thoughts was a mystery.

It was for the best that things hadn't matured from a heart-to-heart into another impromptu chest-to-chest as Billie knocked on their door minutes later to find Sherlock more or less as she'd left him. He wasn't so far gone into his own thought patterns not to acknowledge her presence as John let her in but he said nothing as he plopped down on the now vacated bed, legs out and crossed at the ankles.

"He said anything?" she asked, hair still slightly damp from her shower.

John shook his head. "Not exactly." He closed the door behind her as they instead took over the empty space before the bed. "I watched the footage, though. Footprints say McCarthy didn't do it, all other evidence says he has to have. I need to talk to someone at the local jail in the morning but if it turns out James McCarthy is left-handed, it's pretty much a sealed deal." He looked over to make sure Sherlock hadn't completely zoned them out as he produced his laptop from the side table. He flipped the screen open and flashed it at Billie before dropping it in Sherlock's lap. "The wound is on the right side of Charles' head. In the vast majority of cases, a right handed man's blow strikes against the left side of his victim when standing face to face."

Sherlock let his hands part and rest on the keys, going over John's work as Billie hurried to join them. "So, wait, if he's right handed then it probably wasn't him?"

"Certainly makes it less likely."

"Or it would mean a right handed killer hit him from behind," Billie injected. "But the only footprints in the mud behind Charles' belonged to Patience and she never got close enough to Charles for her to have attacked him."

John nodded. "And the blow landed to the face, not the back of the head."

"Zipper," Sherlock said.

Both John and Billie paused and looked at him.

Sherlock turned the screen out so they could both see. "The marks on the dead man's cheek. It's a zipper imprint," he explained, zooming in on interlocking pattern.

John scowled. It seemed a bit obvious now. "Okay, so he was hit with something with a zipper on it." No sooner had he said it than did his inner detective jump for joy. "James McCarthy's bag."

"There was no bag."

"I know there wasn't but there must have been one at one time." John rushed to the foot of the bed, the fabric-draped posts standing like theatre wings as he took center stage before his audience. "Okay, so picture this. James and Charles are fighting when Patience sees them but she never says that she saw James walk away—only that _she_ walked away. So maybe he didn't. Maybe he killed his father and _then_ walked away. He gets quite a ways out but hears someone else in the woods and worries maybe his father isn't quite dead yet and that he might expose his killer. Thinking fast he throws the bag and runs back down to his father. Charles is dead but unfortunately for James, it's Patience again who's not buying the grieving son act for one minute. She calls the cops and his crime is discovered."

Sherlock nodded along while Billie sat perched beside him, elbowing the detective in the chest.

"He's good," she said.

Sherlock frowned slightly. "Yes, it's very impressive and also very wrong."

John gripped the foot-board, leaning hard into the bed. "You're only saying that because you didn't find a bag. Those woods aren't exactly private property though. Patience said the Turners, McCarthys and the Morans played there all the time together. Maybe check those three properties. Maybe someone picked it up and has no idea what they're actually in possession of."

"Based entirely on the assumption that James McCarthy is left-handed," Sherlock stated.

John opened his mouth to respond but found his voice lost for a moment. His pulse skipped a beat as his brain berated him sharply. This was why Sherlock wasn't supposed to be told. John was doing exactly what Church had wanted to avoid—letting biases challenge fact. He swallowed, taking a deep breath. "An assumption based on most of the evidence," he said.

"Wait, 'Patience said'?" Billie sat up straighter. "You spoke to Patience?"

"Uh, in the bar downstairs, yeah." John smiled weakly at the woman, no longer taking near as much pleasure in beating her to the interview as he had thought he would. "I wrote it all down. I'll e-mail it to you. Nothing really all that new as far as this case is concerned."

Sherlock's gaze flickered in intensity but held steady against John. He slowly nodded. "Billie, contact the constable when you've got the chance and let him know we'd like to drop in on the Turners and Morans. Also, remind him I'd like to speak with James McCarthy."

Billie nodded, finding her tablet on the mattress still and programming herself a reminder.

John tried not to show how Sherlock's request had made his chest ache. Sherlock wouldn't be allowed to see the criminal, Church had made sure of that, but it would raise suspicion if he was told 'no' in an investigation primarily being lead by him. "Actually, I thought I'd talk to McCarthy," John said, fingers still tightly curled along the frame, thinking fast. "It's one of the few things I can do in this case as a medical examiner. No one has to know that doesn't include psychiatric medicine. I could interview him. I know your methods and I can record the conversation and have it typed up for you. Save you time and give me something better to do than just sit around here all day."

"Sounds good to me," Billie said, though her opinion was rather unrequested. "We've already got two households to interview. If John can take the guy in jail then that's one less stop to make. Probably even give us time enough to maybe get Patience to walk us through it at the scene."

Sherlock looked between the two of them questioningly, not enjoying their present company by the look on his face. He was outnumbered though hopefully not by stupid. With a long sigh he sank back into the pillows, kicking his shoes off like projectiles at John. "Fine," he said at last, catching John in the chest and arm.

John looked at him reproachfully but felt none of it. He was too relieved to have steered them clear of the hiccups they would have encountered had Sherlock pursued an audience with James McCarthy. That simply wasn't going to happen.

And certainly not without John there at his side.

Billie blew out a long breath as she hoisted herself off the bed. "Okay, John, medical notes and your notes from your talk to Patience in my e-mail in the next five minutes. Sounds like I have some catching up to do before bed." She stretched, a yawn slipping through as she padded towards the door. "Or with a side of eggs in the morning."

"Yeah, I'll send them as soon as Sherlock gives me my laptop back," he promised, not bothering to be bothered at being ordered. It wasn't actually his case.

Billie wished them both a goodnight and let herself out. Sherlock ignored her in favor of throwing his shirt at John, lamp-shading him with one good toss.


	9. Chapter 9

For a long time, John's nightmares had been about Sherlock. He didn't always fall from the roof of Barts but he always took his own life—no way out, no one left. Sometimes he put a bullet in his head with John's revolver. Sometimes he hung himself from the door-frame between their kitchen and den. Sometimes there was endless amounts of blood on the bathroom floor or none at all on a bed or the sofa with an empty bottle of pills beside. Or a syringe. Sometimes the last words John ever said were '_You machine!_' and sometimes there was still time to beg him not to die.

Those dreams had stopped long ago. He'd only ever woken Mary once with a whimper, both of them pretending it hadn't been _his_ name when he left to wash the sweat from his face before cuddling back into her soft, forgiving embrace. She stroked his back, kissed his face, saved him his pride with no questions, just comfort. He always felt good with her there to soak in his warmth beside him. He had far more dreams than nightmares on the nights they shared.

And then those nights ended.

He'd had few nightmares of Mary, hardly enough to be considered reoccurring, but they were the most cruel of any nightmare he'd ever had. They always started out as a dream, peaceful and pleasant, and then turned into horror with hardly a warning. Most of the time John killed her. Sometimes Sherlock did. Moran hardly ever played into it and nearly always she was innocent. He had cried a few nights, expecting blood on his hands when he'd opened his eyes and finding only sweat with his sheets soaked as from fever. They were rare dreams and he'd always counted himself lucky that they were. The pain was less than the real loss but the guilt wore him down like a millstone.

He'd never woken Sherlock with a shout or a cry from those dreams. Even when he knew the man was awake in the kitchen rather than in his bed upstairs, still working, always busy, Sherlock never commented and never interfered. John breathed in the night air with his face pressed against his pillow on those nights and wrestled his guilt back to sleep to the tick of a clock.

The new nightmare was different but still so familiar. There was chlorine and a voice in his ear, sing-song and whimsical as it told him in no shortage of detail how he was going to dismantle Sherlock Holmes. He sounded so happy and his joy chilled the blood in John's veins, congealing it to jelly. The Storyteller told the tale of a man whose heart was three sizes too small and of the kind sorcerer who could remedy that. "He cut out his eyes first—trophies," he said, "Then his tongue and sharp rods through his ears. He burned his fingertips till the nerves sizzled and died and then you know what happened? That little heart turned out to be just the right size when it was the only thing he had left." Then footsteps, a greeting, a cold so deep in John's bones that they should have shattered like frozen trees. "Show time~" the man sang and John could not stay asleep one instant longer as he felt his feet lurch forward and fall to nothing below.

He sat upright, fighting against the weight on his chest that should have been that damnable vest but wasn't. He breathed hard as he searched the unfamiliar room for answers, as lost for a moment as he was afraid. It came back slowly: their room at the inn, the case against McCarthy, the smell of the breeze and the river through the cracked window. The unfamiliar weight on his chest, now retracted and laying against the bed instead, had been Sherlock's arm. John turned to look at him, finding him wide awake and staring with interest.

He swallowed thickly. "Ah… sorry."

"No problem," Sherlock said, perfectly still as he seemed to remain mesmerized. "You know, I imagine you'd perform quite admirably under torture."

Welcome back to reality. John stopped breathing for a moment to let his mind think without the shuddering sound getting in the way. He drew his knees up as he let his exhale become a loud sigh, raking his fingers through his hair with his elbows bridged across to his legs. "That is the worst compliment I have ever received from you. Ever. That's even with_out_ the bonus points for timing."

Sherlock chuckled, rolling back onto his belly with his arms crossing under his head. "I wasn't tired so I've been observing your sleeping habits. Outside a grimace and slight change to your breathing pattern, a nightmare was quite similar to your normal sleep behavior. You can't physically control how your body reacts to dream stimulus so possessing a natural inclination which is calm until bursting, I would suspect in a controlled environment you could easily endure a great deal before breaking."

"You needed to observe me sleeping to figure that out?"

"No," Sherlock smiled just a little, his eyes glistening under the frizzy fringe of his curls. "But I like that about you. I enjoy it in observation, especially when the situation is not in fact dire."

John shook his head, chuckling softly as he felt his pulse grow steady. "I'm glad you find my tolerance for pain such a virtue. I'm sure I'll take great consolation in the fact at some point."

"With our lifestyle? Surely."

"Sherlock?" John shook his head, trying not to encourage him further with a smile. "You are really shit at this post-nightmare stuff, you know that?"

"I don't know. I'd say you're recovering from the experience quite well." Sherlock stretched his arm back out and placed his hand to John's shoulder, not to comfort but to push as he instructed his partner to lay back down. "It's four twenty-seven, soldier. At ease."

John went down, his own body just as demanding now that the adrenalin was subsiding to the order of natural exhaustion. He sighed long suffering though he let the smile touch his eyes. "That's Captain to you," he corrected and smiled even more with the hum of Sherlock's approval.

John could endure a great deal of pain, yes, but so long as he had breath in his lungs and blood in his veins, he was not going to allow himself to be in that situation ever again. Three years of guilt ridden nightmares was enough. He'd rather the terror of his own fate.

Sherlock left his hand resting on John's shoulder, his cold fingers following the lines of his clavicle through his shirt. John left it alone for a few breaths then pulled it back across his chest, sliding in closer till he could feel Sherlock's hip against his thigh. His hands which were almost always cold lead up to much more comfortable arms and a warm belly if he insisted enough to make Sherlock roll over off of it. Sherlock obliged more for his own comfort, shifting to his side to let John in before drilling a space for his own head into the crook of John's neck and shoulder. He was all bare skin, a million points of possible contact pressed against John from his head to his toes as their legs intertwined under the sheets.

"You're a furnace," Sherlock complained, though made little effort to remove himself.

John squeezed his arm, thumb tracing a string of freckles. "Yeah. Maybe a little," he said, as he let his eyes close to the far more peaceful darkness.

There were no more dreams—good nor bad.

* * *

John waited until Sherlock and Billie were out with Constable Wiggins before getting a cab to the nearest jail in Herefordshire. It was further than he expected but gave him plenty of time to call Church and make sure everything was set and ready for him to arrive, all the details ironed out and credentials waved. He'd have preferred James McCarthy to have been in prison but jail, though far more lax, had seemed to contain him thus far. It felt better to think that way than that somehow they were all playing right into the madman's game.

He smiled at the pretty brunette at the front desk as he walked to greet her, pulling a little at his tie as the summer heat made him regret his choice in dress. He certainly looked the part of a criminal psychologist, though he wasn't sure he was getting too many sanity points himself with a jacket on as well. "Dr. Watson to see Mr. McCarthy," he told her, offering his ID.

She nodded curtly, fingers clicking away at a stone aged computer. Only the best for her majesty's law enforcement. "They've moved him into room 1. End of the hall," she said as she offered him his card back along with a visitors badge and manila file. "Here is his detention information. A guard will be posted outside the door at all times; let him know when you're done or if you need anything."

"_Outside_ the..." John clamped is mouth shut, busying himself with the file instead. "Right. Thank you." He squared his shoulders and made his way down the hall, reminding himself with every step that outside the door was fine, outside the door was normal. He gave the guard a tight lipped smile as he waved his visitors badge and waited for the door to be opened into the nice, private, special hell.

Even though he believed he'd prepared himself for it, John felt his body cringe and crackle with rage at the sight of a sitting, smiling, breathing James Moriarty relaxing in his chair at the opposite end of a table which was bolted to the floor. His short black, receding hair looked oily under the florescent lighting, the tired lines under his eyes deeper than he remembered. Three years—no one said they were kind years to anyone. But the smile was still the same, thin lips tugging like a whip prepared to crack, with drooping eyes marveling always at the funny way life worked.

"Hello," the man said with a voice like a memory. "Doctor Watson. Well, well, well. This _is_ a surprise. I'd ask you what brings you out to a boring place like Ross but I think we both know the answer to that."

John felt his hackles rise and his hands grow steady as he pulled out his own chair and sat. If he got out of this without throwing a punch, he'd consider himself a candidate for sainthood. "Should I be calling you McCarthy or Moriarty, Jim?" he asked.

"Well, why not just stick to a first name basis, _John_. Much less impersonal. More me." Jim smiled, leaning his elbows on the table where John could see the handcuffs like large bangles dangling against his wrists. "So," he started, "you want to know why I killed my father?"

"So you _did_ kill him."

"No," He corrected, "but you think I did. And even after I tell you everything, you're still going to." His eerily penetrating eyes fluttered away, looking off at the wall as though it were a window. "It's true, you know: what they say about home. You can always return but you can never really go back."

"Insightful, truly. Not really what I'm here for though." John peeked at the man's file all the same, browsing over notes on how docile he had been, remorseless for a killer or grief-less for a mourner. He couldn't help but smile slightly at the idea of putting the man away for life. _His_ Moriarty or not, he was still a very unlikable man.

Jim, however, simply rolled his shoulders, not at all concerned with John's disinterest. "I didn't think he'd be out by our pool. Bascombe. It was our meeting spot—the only real landmark for miles out there in the wood. We all knew it. We all went there. And for the first time _he_ was there."

John licked his lips, keeping his back straight against the hard wood of his chair. "You argued," he said, following along, somewhat willing to listen though generally unwilling to believe anything the man said.

Jim smirked. "What does it tell you when both sons abandon their father's name for their mother's? I'll save you the boring details. Suffice to say we hated the man. Apparently it wasn't _entirely_ mutual. He took one look at me and sssssss." He shook his head as he hissed, mocking a look of disapproval. "It's my fault James is dead after all. My face. My legacy. My little scapegoat. I gave him something worth dying for, a death with a _purpose_. Good ole' Da didn't agree."

"I guess there's no reason to ask why you didn't put that down in your statement."

He liked that. Jim's face split with a gleeful smile, his face angling up at the ceiling as he sighed. "Ah, John, no one here really gives a damn about James Moriarty. I bet all of maybe five people in all of Ross even know who he is and they would still need you to remind them of why he's famous. James Morairty, the man who defeated Sherlock Holmes."

"Check your facts. James is dead; Sherlock's alive." John took no small amount of pride in correcting him, watching the way the man's cheeks puffed as he clenched his jaw, a small moment of reproach before the smile returned.

"My brother still won," he said. "He was going to die anyway but I doubt Sherlock was planning to play dead for three years. Inevitability verses possibility. James won. And there's nothing Sherlock or you can do to make him pay."

"We could start by putting you behind bars for the murder of your father."

"You can't punish him by punishing me. Dead is dead. He won. The game is over. Besides, I didn't kill him. And I can prove it."

"Oh yeah?" John sat back, hands on the table. "Go on then. Prove it."

Jim smiled, leaning forward to eat up every inch of space between them that John relinquished. "If I had killed him, I wouldn't be here," he said. "I'd be a million miles away on a beach, drinking out of a hollowed out pineapple with a tiny paper umbrella stuck in. I'm a professional."

"Right. And how long have you been retired exactly?" John felt his pulse quicken for a moment, unsteady on the cusp of anxiety and calm.

The killer's smile grew. "You never really retire," he said and the nightmare winked as it stared back at him.

John bit at the inside of his cheeks as he looked away, back down at the file where no one had still bothered to make note of the man's handedness. He couldn't tell. He knew James Moriarty as a man of disguise on par with Sherlock if not greater: Jim from I.T., Richard Brook. As much as he wanted to believe the man across from him was a man he already knew, there was no proof. It would take a keener eye and ear than his to peel away the facade and find the truth. If there even was a facade. Jim played the knowledgeable but distanced older brother perfectly.

And so there was no harm in forgoing all attempt at subtly. John wanted to know and perhaps the imprisoned man with nothing much to lose would indulge him. It was impossible to know without trying. "So, what, baby brother got to be your stunt double while you enjoyed the show?" he asked, glancing up once again to the man's steady smirk.

"I don't like to get my hands dirty." The madman's head listed to the side as though listening to voices in the distance, his smile fading only so far as it took to claim a look of whimsy. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? James Moriarty alive and well for you to blame everything on and maybe get a little revenge as well?"

The deduction stung but John sat still, doing his best to neither confirm nor deny.

Jim fixed on him. "I didn't use my brother, John. He was family. No need for both Mama's boys to go down in history as terrorists. James is a war hero and me, well, I got what I deserved as far as the rest of the world knows, right? The tumor made him crazy-made him confused. Sebastian would joke about how it made him more like me and well... it wasn't such a bad idea. He wasn't really my brother anymore, that man died when the tumor changed him, so why not give him a death with a bit more meaning than slowly losing his mind to dementia? I made him me and he seemed all too happy to accept it. As long as Sebastian was there. Good man, Sebastian. I should stop off in London sometime to give him my regards."

"I'm sure that can wait till you're reunited in hell."

"They don't hang innocent men for crimes they didn't commit. Well, so I hear anyway." Jim tapped his fingertips against the top of the table, boredom rolling off him.

John was far from impressed and not in the least dissuaded. "So what crimes should we hang you for? Carl Powers? Twelve deaths in the explosion of a block of flats? Kidnapping and attempted murder of two children?"

The smile on Jim's face took on a new light as he became nearly giddy with pride. "You'd give anything for monsters be real again," he said, leering with an unsteady expression. "Exciting, isn't it? And a bit... terrifying? Not that you'd like it any other way."

"I'm quite content with a steady, normal life, thanks." John said to dissuade him, hands clenching around the file in front of him.

"And yet here you are."

There was nothing to say to that. John cleared his throat, eying the file again, wanting distance almost as much as he wanted to simply nail the man with the murder and let justice run its course. Whoever he was, the world would still be a better place without him. And he would still sleep better at night knowing he was far away and unable to interfere with his life.

"Where's the bag, Jim?" he asked. The conversation needed to be about the case in order to solve it, no matter how little it reflected on the true question at hand.

"Bag?"

"Your bag."

"No bag. I didn't plan to stay long. Just came to pay my respects." Jim finally sat back, the intensity of his presence fading as his attention waned. "We threw his ashes in Bascombe pool, you see. I like to visit every now and then. It's not exactly on the way to anywhere but then graves never are, are they? Just passing through, doctor. And as soon as I'm done here, I'll be back on my way."

John chortled. "Oh, so you're just sitting in a jail cell because it's fun, are you?"

"One gets bored. This is new." He smiled again, eyes alight. "You're here."

It was an involuntary shiver but it did not fail to register on Jim's radar nor incite a wrathful indignation in John. "Look, forget about the murder," he spat through gritted teeth, leaning as far over the table as he felt comfortable doing, demanding the offensive as he took control. "Are you the real James Moriarty or was your brother? You know what I mean. Yeah, maybe you started it all but who was the one who wanted Sherlock? Who started the game?"

"Dear me, Johnny Boy, dear me. What would be the fun of telling you that? Can't you tell? Don't you know?"

John punched the table. He couldn't and they both knew it. "You're going to spend the rest of your life behind bars, Moriarty," he swore.

"No, I won't," Jim corrected with a calm that could kill. "I think we're done now. Unless you have anything relevant to discuss? I'm sure Sherlock expected more from this than simple abuse and suspicion."

"Fine. Are you left handed?"

Jim shrugged. "I'm whatever I need to be; whatever my part requires."

"I'll take ambidextrous. That suits our case just fine." John stood up from the table, snatching the file as he turned to the door, wary to turn his back but wanting so much to show a fearlessness he needed to own.

"Tell Sherlock hello for me. You're a lost cause but I expect him to bring my father's killer to justice. I never like the man-my father-but there's just something so... enticing... about having Sherlock Holmes set me free."

John caught the shiver before it passed through him this time, steeling himself from the madman's tone and words. "If it wasn't you, then who was it?"

"Can't you tell? Don't you know?"

John knocked heavy against the door for the guard to let him out.


	10. Chapter 10

John had the cab drop him off a few kilometers short of the inn. He needed a walk and lovely as the scenery was, it wasn't in his nature to wander without purpose. His mind worked best sometimes when his feet were carrying him-like a kinetic connection that kept the gears turning, a self-powered motor, a sustainable energy from foot-meets-pavement. A wandering man was sure to have wandering thoughts. Having a destination meant a conclusion and in general that worked for his mind as well. He scuffed his soles against the loose grave, watching tiny rocks skip in random patterns over the grey road or off into the waving grass. Three kilometers to figure it all out. It wasn't a challenge he enjoyed.

It had all started with Church, he supposed. What did he know about the man? Nothing outside the fact that he was exactly who he said he was—their little field trip had proven that much at least. The case? So simple and yet still unsolved though granted Sherlock had been on it for less than a full day. John's concessions took away the long night hours he would normally devote to something like this. Not that it seemed to really matter. If Church wanted to, with the circumstantial evidence they did have, he could lock James McCarthy up and never have another worry about him. The fear, he supposed, was that Moriarty had played the system before and won. James or Jim, he was likely just as connected to the necessary resources to do it all again. That thought, more than any other, made John's brain feel sour in his skull; cold and spoiled like an overripe fruit. Futility and Moriarty went hand in hand. They were all lucky, then, that Sherlock had so many friends in high places.

As far as John could see it, it didn't matter which Moriarty they were up against if one's interests extended towards the terrorist network both apparently had run just as well as the other. The difference was the obsession with Sherlock—which they all hoped only one of them had. The world had as much to fear from either but Church needed to know if Sherlock was still in danger. A friend of Sherlock's. He could trust the man more by what he didn't say than by what he did. But if Mycroft, _the_ British Government, hadn't been enough to save Sherlock from the one before, he wasn't sure how having someone who only happened to work for MI-6 at a reasonably privileged level was going to save them in the future.

It was too hard to tell the difference between James or Jim. In a way, though, John didn't have to. It was the obsession, not the identity, that was important to define. And James McCarthy knew of Sherlock, had surely known he was alive from all the press surrounding his return, and in that time had done nothing to bring attention to himself. It seemed the man wanted to be believed dead as much as Sherlock had wanted to come alive again. It would have been better had the two men remained ships passing in the night. They were heading for a head on collision now and even if Jim had never met either of them before, as the object of his brother's obsession, surely Jim would want to get to the bottom of what had been so special about Sherlock.

In that way, John had made up his mind. James McCarthy-Jim Moriarty the original-was a danger. He was a threat as sure as slugs to a garden and life could never be that peaceful thing he'd half dreaded. More sour brain, more pickled thoughts. He hated to love that thrill as much as he loved the rush of the worry. Sherlock knew about the brother but perhaps it was time John tell him he was alive. They were playing in the childhood landscape of a killer after all, walking in the footprints of a madman, surrounded in the very sounds and smells and sights that had been the backdrop for mental disorder. It was almost enough to make the nightmare human. John had spent so long thinking of him as a thing, an entity of malice, and yet here there were childhood friends, secret meeting spots, family… James McCarthy was a person. And like Sherlock, deep down, he probably even had a heart.

John nearly stubbed his toe as he kicked at the ground, anger rooting him even as it tried to dissipate. Moriarty and Sherlock were _not_ alike. Sympathy for one should not and would not count towards the other. Moriarty was evil where Sherlock was misunderstood. They were two sides of the same genius and throughout the entire autistic spectrum or the long lists of physiological conditions there could never be enough excuses for shameless murder and the adoption of a life of crime. But there almost was. For every excuse he'd ever made for Sherlock's callousness or unfeeling, dispassionate response to the human condition, he could see Moriarty slipping closer on the Venn diagram into the shade of grey between Understandable and Incomprehensible. A man on par with Hitler in John's mental list of villains did not deserve a string of thoughts bordering on concern for two growing boys, their father, and a hell of a lot of isolating woods.

John left those thoughts attached to a tree that looked like it would be very good for climbing as he continued to walk along the road.

He wondered instead why Sherlock had not told him about Moriarty. John at some point had become the designated worrier, the one who got told things in order that Sherlock not have to remember the lesser details or be bothered while he worked. The more romantic portion of his brain wanted to say it was to spare John the anxiety of not knowing if they were safe. The part of him that felt pity sided with the option that Sherlock was too scared to live in a world where Moriarty could still be alive and chose to delete it. Realistically, not being able to say for certain, having to admit to not knowing, probably had just as much to do with it as anything. In Sherlock's world, there was Jim and there was James and there was only one known grave. John's world was more informed but he wasn't sure which one had the most reason to fear. Somehow he imagined it would be a small relief to Sherlock to know for certain all the same. His phone felt heavy in his pocket with the text he still had not sent.

The wind kicked up slightly with the smell of summer riding on its back. No car exhaust, no smog, with dust that tasted far less tangy than the metallic silt from home. There was always the distinct, slightly moldy flavor of the river's banks lingering over the hairs on his upper lip, but it was welcome to a nose that had become far too accustomed to the Thames. John loved London, _Sherlock's_ London, but he missed getting away just as much if the way the wind calmed him had anything to say about it. Knowing the man like he did, they'd be gone once the case was solved, catching the first ride back home without a moment spared past packing. There should have been picnics and long walks; Sherlock on a blanket, a nice wine and plate of cheese to share, some fruit, bit of bread, and nothing to do but sit and eat with idle interest as they counted ducks or watched the clouds, always on the edge of a nap with nothing important worth saying; classically romantic and isolated from the rest of the world that never stopped wanting so much from them.

Lestrade was right: they were married. There was love but very little one could call romance. John credited himself as being very good in that department but Sherlock's idea of a fun night often included tetanus shots and court orders. The hometown of their arch nemesis was hardly the best location for a lover's sport of whimsy but neither had an electronic connection the best way to tell the man he loved him, nor pissed off and vengeful been the best motivations for their first kiss. Nothing had ever gone in any traditional ways. They moved in as strangers, bonded like husbands while platonic friends, and become lovers in all but actions long after the lifelong connection was made. Making out on an inn bed a few kilometers from where James Moriarty's ashes were soaked into the earth was really rather par for the course. It wasn't _quite_ dancing on his grave but given the chance, John wouldn't have batted an eye at rolling slippery in the mud near Bascombe naked.

It's the simple things in life, really.

If only loving Sherlock was simple.

John left those thoughts tied loosely to the wind so he could come back to them later, letting them drift off behind as the thatch roofings of the town came all the closer.

There was really only one more thing now. All the smaller thoughts that had troubled him seemed much harder to recall when matched against the current load. Billie was there somewhere in the list of things that irked him but so far down on the list that it was petty to consider. There was continued curiosity about Sigerson and the things unsaid in their years of conversation that Church alone might be privy to but that too was too small in the overall scope of things. All his major concerns could all quite easily be summed up in just two groups: the things worth dying for and the things that wanted to kill them. If it didn't fall into either of those, it didn't matter. He wasn't sure where his profession lay within.

John was a doctor. He'd studied hard at medicine, applied it to his own detriment in war, and came home to continue to practice it. It wasn't a fall back with a military career ended by injury, it had been _the_ career he'd wanted from the start. It was hard work to get from treating sniffles at a local surgery to getting a position with an actual hospital where people's lives were put into his hands. It had taken him years, devoting himself to further study until _he_ was the someone other people consulted. He was _finally_ at a place where he really wanted to be—part of the reason he'd considered it time to finally settle down with Mary in the first place. He could get old as a doctor and provide for them both so Sherlock could quit with the Yard and come home to be idle and happy in his boorish misery and take up hobbies that would probably surprise them both.

It was always the case with Sherlock that John was made to chose between him and things he loved or cared about. He'd always chosen Sherlock in the past. He'd never regretted it either. But it was never asked of Sherlock to choose between his work and John and it never would be; John respected the intimate relationship between the man and his applied genius, but the fact remained that it was always John's sacrifice in the end. John hated the danger Sherlock found himself in as much as he envied him of it and Sherlock hated the way the hospital occupied John's time and kept him busy away from his own interests. There was no middle ground. There was either John quitting at the hospital to make Sherlock happy or Sherlock quitting at Scotland Yard to make John happy. And the longer he thought on it, the less it felt like his decision alone. He knew where he stood, what was important to him, what he wanted and what he was fearful of. Relationships were give and take and perhaps it was time Sherlock realize that. It would probably be their first big decision to make as a couple, especially with a Moriarty waiting in the pews.

That thought he tucked in his pocket, storing it someplace nice and secret until it was time to come out again, as he pulled out his mobile phone.

The quaint white walls of the homes and businesses of Ross were practically upon him as he slowed his steps, distracted by technology. He could hear a cab rolling along the road and stepped further into the grass as he opened his phone's screen. He wasn't sure how to best word what he needed to say. Did he start with "I know about the other Moriarty" or slide in behind "We need to discuss the second case"? There had to be an easy way to say 'I know that you know but you need to know that I know so we can talk about what you don't know'. He didn't get to put too much more thought into it as his phone suddenly sprang to life, his ringtone startling him for a moment as his caller ID announced "Patience" like a rather ironically timed message from the cosmos. He looked around, finding himself more than adequately alone, as he raised his mobile to his ear and gave a simple "Hello?"

"John?" Her voice was half panicked. "John, he's after me. He's going to kill me!"

John pressed his phone closer to his head, cupping the other ear from the slight roll of the wind. "Who's after you?" he asked, walking just a little faster towards the familiar visage of the Red Lion Inn.

"Jim! H-He sent me a note. Someone who works for him sent me this note! He's going to have me killed, John! Please help me!"

"Alright, calm down. Have you called the police?"

"How can I trust the police? For all I know, they're working for him! John, you're the only one I can trust! You're the only one I know for sure isn't one of Moriarty's men! Please, I'm at the inn, where are you?"

"Almost there." He began to jog, his feet slipping only slightly against the damp grass as he crossed back onto the pavement. "Look, you're in a public place; that's good. Take a seat in the bar, stay anywhere where people can see you and keep as far away from windows as you can. I'll be there in just a few minutes." He kept the phone on as he continued on the final stretch, as much to calm her as to keep himself informed. He could hear very little background noise but the rush of the world around him was loud enough to drown it easily.

It made sense. Patience knew Jim, knew who and what he was, knew more than enough about both sides of his life to be a very damaging witness in any trial. Childhood friends turned murderer and whistle blower. It was far from surprising but nowhere near what John wanted to hear. The cases were getting so far ahead of him he'd missed the point at which they'd met.

He skidded into the bar area with no small pride in the way he was only _marginally_ out of breath with a pulse tapping a samba against his ribs. One step, two steps, three steps, Patience as she wrapped her arms around him, head buried in the side of his neck, her purse rolling around to smack against his backside as her arms clasped him around his trunk.

"John, oh _God_, I have never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life!"

John coughed as the much needed air failed to enter his lungs, his hands finding safe purchase of her shoulders. "You're okay," he said, trying to sound comforting while his lungs begged him simply to pant. "Look, let's have a seat. I'll call Sherlock and we'll figure out what to do from there."

She nodded, sniffling into his collar, as she slowly pulled back. "Okay… okay, I'd like.. I'd like that."

He forced a smile as he steered them both towards a table. The all-knowing woman who had welcomed him at the front desk watched with raised brows and a well formulated frown.

John took a seat, his feet still throbbing slightly in his shoes. He was not a young man anymore. He dialed for Sherlock and waited, his eyes searching out the windows, glancing over the other patrons. No one _looked_ like an assassin but he wasn't going to call his own opinion the final say on the matter. Sherlock would have a much better idea of what exactly they might be dealing with.

Sherlock always had his phone with him. There were few instances that would make him miss a call from John and they were all reasonably dire and quite acceptable. There was hardly a ringtone at all, though, before his voice mail message kicked in—John's recording after he'd gotten tired of the "This better be interesting" greeting Sherlock had made. John scowled at the sound of his own voice and tried again with much the same result.

"What's wrong?" Patience asked, hands knotting in the napkin.

John exhaled loudly. "I've got a signal but I'm not getting through."

"Where is he?"

"He's actually out there visiting the homes in the area." He licked his lips, his jaw feeling tight. "Guess he didn't make it to your place yet. What's reception like out there?"

Patience's face said it all. John cursed under his breath as he leaned back in his seat, trying again with a text this time in hopes it would find its way bouncing through the ether to him. "_Urgent. Call me. – J_" he wrote, and sent it with his lip caught between his teeth in anticipation. The disheartening failure notification wasn't really all that much a surprise. He'd have had as much luck with a couple of empty tins and a string.

"Right… I guess we wait here," he said at last, placing his phone on the table between them. His feet tapped against the floor with nervous energy, stagnation filling him with an abundance. He raised his hand to call the waitress over to their table. With her nerves obviously shot, he figured Patience could use a drink.

Patience grabbed his arm instead, pulling it back down to stay the call. "John, I ran out of my place the moment I read the note. What if Moriarty has already sent a killer to my place?" she asked, the implication hanging unspoken in the air.

John clenched his jaw, his teeth protesting to the strain. "Did you bring the note with you?"

She nodded, unzipping the top compartment of her purse to bring out a slightly crumpled piece of paper. She smoothed it out on the table beside his phone, the single word popping off the middle in dark, bold writing.

"**Hammurabi**"

John puzzled over it for a second, the name a funny memory from his school days. "What, an eye for an eye?" he asked.

"Equal give and take," Patience pulled her hands from the page as though wary of a venomous bite. "I put Jim in danger of being hanged for murder. It's a threat against my own life. No one would send me this but him."

On that John had few doubts. People didn't normally leave notes with the name of ancient Babylonian kings at random. And Sherlock was going to the Turner's home—if he wasn't there already. "We have to call the police. Sherlock's with Wiggins; someone will be able to get a call out to him at least, I'm sure."

"Do you trust Wiggins?"

He'd hardly met the man. John shrugged, taking the note from the table and folding it into his own pocket. "We don't really have a choice in the matter," he admitted. "Sherlock might be in danger right now and there's no other way to get in contact with him. A police scanner is our best bet."

Patience looked at her lap, brown hair falling over her shoulders. "We could go back. Through the wood. I know all the shortcuts—we'd be back at my place in less than half an hour if we walked fast and the signal seems okay over the shorter distances. Might get him on your phone once we're closer"

"I'm not going to make you go back there if you're afraid." Though the offer was tempting. John felt fit to run if just pointed in the right direction. But he could still see the tremors in her shoulders, the hardly imperceptible tells of fear. He knew what it felt like to no longer feel able to confide in the police. There were few things more alienating and hopeless than losing that trust. "If you want to hide out in my room while I handle this, I understand."

She shook her head hard. "No. I.. I feel safer with you. I'll go wherever you go so… let's go to Sherlock."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded. John wasn't about to insist otherwise. He stood up, taking her arm to follow as they went quickly upstairs to his room. He got the gun from its hiding spot and slipped it into the waistband of his trousers, throwing off the dress jacket and tie in a quick yank before grabbing a light coat to hide his weapon. He considered sitting and trading out his shoes for proper trainers necessary enough to waste a few more moments on before dashing off back down the stairs with Patience still in tow.

"Follow me!" she shouted as they rushed through the front doors, heading off across the road towards the unbroken line of trees looming at the other end of a wide, waving field.

John rushed to keep up, heels pounding hard against the earth as they both fell into a short run through the vulnerable space between them and their next cover.


	11. Chapter 11

John wished he'd taken the time to change out of the remnants of his suit before dashing off to the rescue. Comfortable as it was on normal occasions, it had never been made with the intention of running through the wood. Though Sherlock seemed to be able to do anything in his own-tightly fit as they were!-John was having a somewhat awkward time of following Patience as the sweat clung to him and his skin became itchy from the rough rubbing and miscellaneous allergens in the air. It was much easier to concentrate on momentary discomfort than on the panic that motivated his legs over fallen branches and rocky terrain.

He wasn't sure how long they'd been running, or how much further they'd need to, or even where they were. He trusted Patience to know and kept his senses in tune to the sounds around them, waiting for a snap of a twig or rustle in the brush to give away the presence of someone other than themselves. He had to trust Billie to be Sherlock's gun if he needed it and himself to get to them before things got bad if they were indeed headed in that direction. As he missteped and felt another branch scrape over his shoulder, pulling at his jacket, it was hard to keep optimistic. Even realism was a little too dreary for him as things stood.

To his right he heard a rustling, his eyes searching till they pinpointed the swaying leaves under the tremble of a branch. He reached out, grabbing Patience by the arm as he pulled her to stop, forcing her down till her knees struck the earth. Her breath was shaky and short.

"What-"

"Shhh." John pressed his fingers to her lips for a moment before reaching around to pull the gun from his trousers. He gestured towards the thick line of trees where the echo of movement left only a few small leaves still shuddering without wind. Her eyes grew wider, her hand finding his thigh as she gripped him for strength.

They said nothing, even their breaths dissipating in the silence that stretched as John waited for a sign. In the desert he had been trained to look for the reflective glare of sunlight on metal. The desert was words apart from this, though, and the thick canopy of limbs above left little direct sunlight to catch and glimmer against the surface of any knife or gun. He felt the anxiousness building up in his bones until the leaves began their dance again, branches moving, twigs snapping. Patience's gasp fell behind her own hand as it clasped against her face. John raised his gun-arm, taking careful aim, still waiting for a physical signs of a threat.

When things went silent once more, John gave in to inspiration and pointed his gun at the air instead, letting off a single shot into the trees above. Patience all by screamed as she curled in closer but John kept his eyes open, locked on the waving branches, and eventually on the backside of a deer as it bolted off in the other direction along with an audience of birds and smaller animals set into a scurry.

"Deer," John said softly, exhaling long and deep before looking down at the terrified body curled along his side, fingernails digging painfully into his leg.

Patience looked up slowly, looking around with her hair falling in her face. "You're sure? It sounded-"

"I know. Fear plays tricks on you. Doesn't mean the next one won't be real so it's better we hurry."

She nodded as she stood, dusting herself off in a mostly cursory gesture before leading the way again, walking, then jogging, then falling back into a light run once the sounds fell back into a mask of vague ambiance.

Twice more he called Patience to stop, ordering her to her knees while he caught up at a crouch. A bird. Something unseen that took off far too fast in the opposite direction to be a man. John would listen to her breath and be reminded of his own even as he tried to ignore the pull in his thighs of tired muscles and the cries of his toes from one too many unseen rocks.

"How much further?" he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow as his heels sank into the moist soil.

Patience sighed loudly on her exhale, looking around at what seemed to John to be nothing more than the same trees they'd been running through since they'd entered the dense woods. "Not too far," she said, pointing ahead with confidence. "Boscombe pool is just there. I live a few kilometers past it. The reception there is good sometimes. We could stop and try Sherlock again."

John liked the sound of that. He helped Patience back to her feet one last time and as they walked quickly to the hidden clearing, finally a destination within sight as worry burrowed further and further into the forefront of John's mind.

Though he'd never been there before, the terrain looked as familiar as if he had. It was far from beautiful, more uncomfortable and dreary than anything else with the ground all but pulling at his soles and the insects more than happy to fly right into his face. Peacefulness was all John could give it credit for. The pool itself was quite large, a football field's length at least and just about as wide, but felt crowded by overgrowth from all visible sides. They were on the same side as the murder had occurred with the mess of footprints in the mud still embodying the bulk of the entire investigation. John didn't recall there being a boat tied up at the bank in any of Billie's video but the rest of it he could place easily, somehow managing to get his bearings. "Your home is that way, yes?" he asked, pointing in the direction Sherlock had walked when investigating Patience's trail.

Patience nodded, walking up beside him. "Yeah, we're not far now if he went there. Even closer if he's still at the Moran place." She pointed off just slightly east of the route they'd been looking down before turning north and pointing there as well. "If he's at the McCarthy place, though, we'll only be getting further away if we head towards my home."

John licked his lips, breathing in through his nose as he looked out upon their options. It wasn't a decision he need make on his own, though. His phone buzzed in his pocket, breaking their momentary silence, and caught him enough by surprise to make him jolt in his stance. "That's him," he said, even without having seen it. He fumbled for the phone, pulling it out and growing frustrated with the screen as he tried his sweaty fingers against the panel. It obeyed eventually, showing him a single message had been received and several more calls missed-all from the same number. John smiled briefly as he opened his messages first.

"Case one: Solved. Case two: Who told you about JM(x2)? - S"

John stared for a moment, unable to keep back the small, relieved smile that spread across his face. Sherlock was okay-better than okay if he'd solved the case; an answer to which John was increasingly interested in hearing. As for the other part, John felt immediately foolish. Of course there would be clues to the existence of the McCarthy brothers in the houses of the Morans and Turners. Childhood friends probably possessed pictures and other bits and pieces that would unfold into the unveiling. There were more important things for now, though. Discussing how he knew and what it now meant for them both was something that could wait.

John dialed his number, looking over at Patience as he held the phone to his ear. "Where's a good place to meet up with him?"

"Ah... Boscombe's really the largest landmark around here. It's just the estates and the town after that." Patience said, gesturing back the way they'd come.

"Boscombe it is then." He didn't like the idea of being away from eye witnesses but he wasn't about to prolong his separation in times like these from Sherlock. A town was much safer than relative isolation but they would get back there soon enough. Together. "See if you can call your father—anyone at all that should be notified about what's going on."

Patience nodded, digging in her purse, while John waited for Sherlock to pick up. He didn't wait long. "Who told you?" the detective asked, forgetting pleasantries completely.

"Hello to you too," John teased. "Look, we can talk about all that later. I'm at Boscombe with Patience, we were coming to warn you. Moriarty is threatening her life and I'm worried there's already someone around ready to take her out-maybe at her home. We're going to head back to-"

"John, shut up and listen to me very carefully. Do you have your gun?"

"Of course I have my gun. You think I'd-"

"Point it at Patience; we're heading to Boscombe right now to assist you."

John froze, his shoulders tensing. He would have liked to have said it was the slight shock of the order or the insinuation it carried that made a shiver roll down his vertebra. Neither of those were quite as chilling as the cold point of something hard pressing against his back, the prick of it hinting quite convincingly of it being a knife as he felt his gun being pulled unceremoniously from his trouser's waistband.

"Hang up, Dr. Watson," Patience ordered, the point digging in harder, stinging as sweat dripped into the small well of a scratch.

Sherlock's voice carried even as John pulled the phone from his face, both hands raising defensively from habit and training. "Patience Turner's maiden name is Moran," the detective said. "She's Sebastian's sister!"

John closed his eyes as he pushed the red button on his phone's screen, ending the call before letting the phone fall to the mud below.

_We used to play together when we were kids... Practically our own little gang: the McCarthys, the Turners and the Morans...Sebastian went off with James and Patrick to join the army after school, _I got married_, and Jim disappeared..._

"Fuck," John whispered, letting his head roll forward as he breathed in deep the musky smell of defeat.

_It would mean a right handed killer hit him from behind, but the only footprints in the mud behind Charles's belonged to Patience...The marks on the dead man's cheek; it's a zipper imprint...He was hit with something with a zipper on it._

_There was no bag._

"Jim didn't do it," he said with a disbelieving laugh, his chest constricting hard around his lungs with the weight of understanding. "Moriarty's fucking innocent. It was you; it was your fucking _purse_. What did you do, put a rock in it?" He couldn't see her but he could feel her and hear her, least of the sounds he wanted to hear being that of the safety on his gun being clicked off. He felt the muzzle press to the back of his neck as the knife point pulled away from his spine. "Why'd you do it?" he asked, trying hard not to swallow.

Patience sighed. "Because he was alive. I mean, how do you think I feel? My brother's in jail because of the man's stupid orders and here he is, alive and well, not lifting one god damn finger to help Seb but with all the time in the world to come play in the wood. And I heard _everything_ he said. Everything. And I thought... it's not fair, you know? My family is going to rot in jail and he couldn't care less. I wouldn't stand a chance against Jim but... an eye for an eye; my family for his."

"So Hammurabi is _your_ code."

"I wasn't lying about receiving that note. Jim's little way of letting me know he knows I killed his father and why. And he'll kill me. But not before I'm finished."

John's heart sank, the muzzle of his gun warm against his neck but still sending that tell-all shiver on a return trip. "Your brother killed people, Patience. Sherlock and I were just doing our job."

"I know," she said, and her voice was kinder for a moment before the hard press of the gun forced John's head forward, the returning point of the knife now in his thigh forcing his leg to step towards the bank of the pool where the small boat was tied. "I never planned for this, John, but I can't let the opportunity pass me by. If I'm going down, I'm taking Sherlock Holmes with me. For Sebastian and for myself as well."

John's mouth felt dry, his eyes focusing on the small rowboat as he wrestled with his options. "Why the boat. Where are we going?"

"Just out to the middle. We won't be bothered there. Less chance of an ambush from either Moriarty's men or Sherlock's." The knife caught him harder, stabbing in just slightly but more than enough to make John's body go rigid and his voice to hiss through his teeth. "You can't escape out on the water, either."

"You think I can't disarm you?"

"Think the collateral damage won't kill you?"

John bit his bottom lip, walking forward with the continued press of her weapons. "You don't want to do this. You really don't," he said, trying to think of something to keep them both on solid ground. "You need our help more than ever if Moriarty is after you. We have connections. The kind of information you have might even get you cleared of murder charges for the exchange. You never know. It doesn't have to be like this. It's not too late."

"Yes, it is." Patience twisted her knife and John stumbled, his knees hitting the side of the boat as the gun kept pressed against the notch of his skull and neck. "It was too late for Patrick when that bomb took him in Afghanistan. It was too late for James when that tumor made him nuts. It was too late for Sebastian when he listened to a madman instead of himself. And it's too late for Jim because the one who will get revenge on Sherlock Holmes is going to be me."


	12. Chapter 12

It wasn't hard work to row the boat out to the middle of Boscombe pool but John's hands still ached from the friction of the ores as he dragged them through the stagnant, green waters. He didn't have many other options open to him. For a short time he considered swinging the long, flat of the ore into Patience's head or side but she never gave him the opportunity, her eyes as steady as the gun in her hand as she watched him, ordered him, and assured herself he obeyed. Leaping into the water just made him a target for the gun while lunging at her meant possibly taking the knife instead of the bullet. For the moment, biding his time seemed the surest bet. Unlike her brother, Patience had not planned this from the start with booby traps or reinforcement waiting to spring and take Sherlock and the others by surprise. For once, John himself felt in the most immediate danger and it had an interesting calming affect that never arose when the target was Sherlock Holmes. His own murder was worlds easier to take with a grain of salt.

He tried not to breathe in too deeply as he watched the swarms of tiny insects float in the air around them, breathing out through his mouth with the tickle of his nose hairs. The sun was warm on his face, casting longer shadows over the muddy clearing where they'd left his phone and their trail behind. They wouldn't have long to wait if Sherlock and the others had indeed been near the woodland estates. But time itself seemed to be at a standstill.

"So, how will you do it?" John asked, lacking in conversation as even the birdsong drew still.

Patience shrugged slightly, betraying nothing in foresight. "I've got you. That's all anyone really ever needs to get to Sherlock Holmes, right?

John tried not to let his expression turn sour.

"I've read your blog," Patience explained. "Moriarty knew to use you. Sebastian knew it too. Sherlock Holmes has only one great weakness and it's Dr. John Watson. If you ask me, they were both too preoccupied to really understand just how to use you, though. Boys are funny like that. Give them the fire to light their way and watch them burn the whole forest down." She sighed, eyes flickering off John for a moment but only a moment, not long enough to put anything into action. "Boys think the only way to hurt someone is to attack them personally," she said, face empty and still. "It hurts so much more to be the one left behind."

John's throat felt tight. "Yeah. Yeah, it does," he said, and let the ores sink into their reigns as they floated in the middle of the empty pool. He cleared his throat, wiping his sore palms against his trousers as he looked down at the bottom of the boat. No tools, some small line of rope, mostly soggy leaves and scraps of woods no more substantial than twigs for tinder. He licked his lips. "You've read my blog, right? So you've read about me and Sherlock… and me and Mary. So you should know I know exactly what you're talking about. Being left behind is... there aren't words for it. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

"Liar."

John sat straighter, shoulders rolled back. "I don't get off on torture," he stated simply.

Patience stared for a moment then smiled a little kinder, her face warming up to more than just the sunlight.

The water was motionless save for the small ripples from insects. No splash of fish, no snake's trail, nothing to signify it as habitable. It seemed to hold as much life as a city puddle; nothing more than breeding grounds for bacteria and bugs. They seemed to have left all wildlife back in the woods with only the sky above to mock them as a swarm of black birds flew overheard, cawing loudly. John looked up to watch them, wondering from what direction they had come and if they were a sign that Sherlock was coming near.

"I was a war bride," Patience said into the stretch of silence, the knife hand drilling the weapon against the seat beside her. "Patrick and I were married for a week before all three boys left and I moved in with his father so I wouldn't be alone. You find out all kinds of family secrets when you've nothing to do but clean all day. And old men like to talk to pretty girls who like to listen. Mr. Turner and Mr. McCarthy were old IRA buddies. Turner got in trouble back home and sought rather iconic sanctuary and a few years later McCarthy turned up and lived comfortably off blackmail ever since. I didn't kill an innocent man, Dr. Watson. You don't raise a monster by being a saint." She turned the knife over again, letting the blade rest against her knee. "I don't know what all they did but I do know Mr. Turner was more afraid of the IRA than he was mad at the English. Patrick was raised here and they were both well liked in the community. But the McCarthys... Anarchy is the word for it, I guess. Some of the games Jim'd play... it wasn't about the English, it was about... He liked to undermine everything and then turn around and usurp it. I didn't realize growing up but when Mr. Turner would talk about the good ole' days of planting bombs and distributing firearms and then knowing who Jim grew up to be? It's scary to know that sort of thing was right beside you all your life and you never knew it."

John nodded, not sure what else he should do as she continued on talking.

"Mr. McCarthy hated that James went and joined the British army. And that day in the woods... he never forgave James for turning his back on their heritage it sounded like. Jim was always his favorite but they both hated him. They used to turn up with black eyes and... He was a very strict man. Jim looked out for James always so... I think Jim thought he'd be happy to know James was dead but Mr. McCarthy was furious. He didn't sound all there and half the time he was shouting and it didn't make any sense. Gaelic maybe. I don't know. I didn't care. I just wanted to hurt Jim so I killed him. And knowing what Mr. McCarthy had been made me feel like a super hero. I put the rock in my purse and swung it at his head then tossed the rock into Boscombe just in case. I never dreamed Jim would take the rap for it or that it would bring Sherlock Holmes here. Just a bit of pest control. Just letting Jim know what it feels like to be the last one standing. If he's half the man he dreams he is, he'll head straight back to London and set Sebastian free."

"Why are you telling me all this?" John asked, feeling the sting of an insect on the back of his neck as he rubbed it absently.

Patience took a deep breath, her fingers clenching along the handle of the gun. "Because I'm going to kill you, John. And I think you deserve to know everything."

He shook his head, the boat rocking sympathetically. "No, that doesn't explain in the _slightest_ why you need to hurt Sherlock. Because you _don't._."

"I do. Jim's going to kill me and this is the only thing I can do now." Her fingers trembled slightly on the gun, her aim for once no longer steady. "I can't kill him; no one can kill him. But I can take away everything he has worth living for and pray that he takes his own life."

"Sherlock's life and my life are more important than this feud you've concocted!" John sat forward on his bench, careful of the trigger finger that seemed to itch to stop him should he try anything. He took a steady breath, eyes locked and piercing with anger he could not be bothered to reel in. "You think just because you kill me, Sherlock will fold up and die? Sherlock will become everything Moriarty's ever wanted from him and I won't be there to stop him. You will be doing Moriarty a favor!"

Patience's eyes were unwavering-not in intensity but in defeat. "I have to hope he's not nearly that strong," she said.

"He is," he assured her, but the futility was hard to argue.

The birds took off again but this time carried on the same wind as a loud, panicked, "John!" that made both of them turn to look at the shore and the two men and one woman standing there at the bank. It was now or never.

Patience seemed to agree.

John lunged towards her, knocking the gun aside as it went off, the sound tearing through the peacefulness on the water. Adrenalin meant he didn't feel a thing, shot or not, as he grabbed for the knife, trying to avoid its tip as the boat rocked dangerously with their struggle.

"JOHN!"

The small boat capsized with John's only thought being not to fall on the knife, to angle it away, to seize it, to miss it as they both tumbled over into the pool. Patience's only thought was to hold on tight as the green water swallowed them whole.

The world was tinted like a weak martini as John's eyes flew open, visibility nonexistent as he struggled to swim to the surface. Patience held on, his legs caught between hers, her arms circling his chest and the knife God-knew-where. The green of the water was slowly turning red but John could not hesitate to ponder from what body it was flowing. He fought to swim as she fought to drag him down, the weight of his clothes aiding her as he felt the sunlight darken overhead, the shadow of the boat grow smaller and just out of reach of the single arm he had free.

He changed his tactics to clawing at Patience instead, shoving to unhinge her, his chest burning as she held on. It wasn't a deep pool but it was proving to be deep enough. He felt her teeth bite into his chest and he gasped—God, no. He choked. He tried to expel the lungful of water and felt his body suck in more as though it somehow had the capacity to separate out the oxygen he needed from the flood of murk and blood. It hurt. John kicked and struggled till he felt her slide away, floating down to the black below, only to find darkness all around him as well. He'd lost the surface. He'd lost the boat. He'd lost any sense of direction and slowly the sense to care beyond how much colder it was, how much heavier he felt, and how much he did not want to die.

Experiments in the fridge, body parts in mason jars, violin at three in the morning, cold nights in ugly Christmas jumpers mailed to him by his mother. Mrs. Hudson's home cooked meals, busy-body reporters, legal hoops and unpaid bills. Drunk texts from Harry, Sherlock's disappearing socks, arguments about the merits of Scooby Doo. Kissing on a bed of pensioner linens, his _voice_, the roll of his hips, the permission to continue and show him everywhere his transport could take him.

He'd been down this path before and he knew the choice was no longer his but with every last thought in his mind John begged and prayed to not be taken away before he got the chance to see if Sherlock was ticklish or to ask what his favorite Beatle's song was. He still needed to know if Sherlock liked his mother's cottage pie.

Wrapped in the deadly embrace of the ashes of James Moriarty, John sank deeper towards the wisp of slimy plant life at the bottom of Boscombe pool and stopped thinking all together.

* * *

His chest _hurt_ but so startling was the force of being aware that John could not do more than choke and sputter, putrid water pouring from his lips as he felt himself rolled onto his side. His head was killing him, his ears buzzing, his chest screaming with every strangled breath, but somewhere between gasping and pretending they weren't tears building in the corners of his eyes, John realized he was alive. Hands rubbed his back, a soft voice offering him words of encouragement as John's lungs vomited up the last of the pool so he could follow up an inhale with a proper exhale once more.

"That's it, John. You got it. In and out. That's the stuff."

John hated the tone to Billie's voice but hardly minded the encouraging hand that still rubbed at his cold, clammy skin. He blinked blearily, aching all over till he imagined even his eyelids were sore. But he could see her as a golden halo overhead through the blurriness of his vision, her blonde hair dripping on his face.

"Ambulance crew should be here in ten." Wiggins.

"Is that the best they can do?" Sherlock. Though their voices sounded distorted—his ears still clogged up from pressure and water—he could not miss the terseness of Sherlock's retort.

"Sorry, we're not London. It takes time to get to places."

"Mmarite," John groaned, coughing once more, forcing himself onto his forearms as he rolled to feel the earth under his knees. He felt heavy with mud and water and death.

Billie's hands held him firmly, guiding him up and keeping him steady. "Not too fast," she cautioned, but John shook his head, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand as he blinked at the shadow he would know anywhere as Sherlock.

"Where's Patience?" he asked, his voice hoarse and broken.

Sherlock stared at him for a moment then shrugged, hands deep in his pockets.

"We didn't find her," Wiggins explained, still dripping wet from his own dip in the pool. "Lucky to find you, honestly. Damn near impossible to see even six inches in front of your nose in that."

John coughed again, his throat protesting even as his lungs continued to perform the halleluiah chorus. He remembered the blood and felt along his chest, feeling out for tender traces of penetration along the stitch in his side. "M I hurt?" It was a ridiculous follow up to his proclamation of health before but his head was still too unfocused to let him know much more than the basics.

Billie helped him sit up, giving him her shoulder to lean on. "Seem fine to me. Feel pain anywhere?"

"My lungs."

"Anywhere not drowning related?"

John shook his head, feeling the act of breathing once again fall back into something normal and natural that did not protest so much against the fluids he'd expelled.

Constable Wiggins sighed loudly, kicking a stone into Boscombe with an exasperated growl. "How the hell are we going to build a case against Patience now? It's your lack of hard evidence against ours at this point."

"I don't think that's really going to matter much anymore, Constable."

Wiggins glared at Sherlock his sopping sleeves sending trails of droplets as he gestured to the muddy bank. "I think you'll find it matters quite a bit to James McCarthy whether or not there's a case against him."

Sherlock shook his head, his eyes locked across the water as he rose his arm simply, pointing out across tepid grave.

John turned his head just in time to watch a lone man, half hidden in the shade of the trees, tip his hat and fade away into the maze of trees and shadows.


	13. Chapter 13

The first thing John did when they returned to the Red Lion Inn was brush his teeth. It felt as though he would never be able to wash the taste of the green waters from his mouth but he was damn well going to try with all the minty flavored paste he could squirt. He scrubbed at his tongue furiously, gagging two or three times as he applied the bristles to the far back near his throat, half near retching as it was from the taste and smell that still clung to his senses. He imagined licking pond scum off a rock would leave much the same flavor. Or sucking aquarium walls. The mint helped.

The shower following had felt good as well, even if more water was less than appealing. He'd spent a good couple hours in sopping clothes and sloshy shoes and worried he might have forgotten what dry felt like. Not that they hadn't tried to make him more comfortable at the local surgery. It was always said that doctors made the worst patients and despite the appalling idea of living up to the stereotype, John could not find much use in standing apart from the norm. Half an hour on oxygen and a few shots to combat infection had been all he was willing to subject himself to. Sherlock hadn't argued with his stance on the subject and so John stood firm, releasing himself into his own care with a long awaited date with a toothbrush. His body still ached. The little comforts of clean made for a nice shield from discomfort while rolling in lather with something sweet smelling on his skin. John had breathed in the remnants of the steam as it opened up his sinuses and let the muck blow out into tissues. He would never be a great fan of drowning. He wasn't that keen on forest water features either to be honest. All that was over and done with now, though, as he stood in their room with his towel around his waist, dressing gown pulled loosely over it for decency.

Sherlock was sitting on the bed, same as John'd left him upon their return, not so much as a fold in his garments disturbed as he sat poised like a statue on the crisp, white linens.

John forced a small smirk as he closed the door behind him. "I feel like a man again," he announced with a sigh, letting his flat feet stomp lightly on the floor as he paced to the other side of the room where his clothes were folded in a neat stack. Fresh pants, shorts, and a crew neck tee. John gave them a pat, still too damp to change, as he turned to watch for any signs of life in the one and only Sherlock Holmes.

The man still refused to stir. Not even his eyes had followed John or head bobbed to show he'd heard him. Shock, John thought, and he breathed out steadily through his nose. Since the moment he came to on the muddy bank of Boscombe, with Moriarty watching on from the opposite side, Sherlock had been coldly distant. The doctor had hoped that the detective would unwind once they were alone in a private sanctuary but the man seemed to resist the calm in favor of nerves and stress. He was somewhere in that funny head but self-imprisoned, self-contained in his own thoughts and fears.

Moriarty was alive and free, McCarthy's escape confirmed while John had breathed into a mask, staring up at diagrams of the pulmonary system. It seemed the quietly disturbed man had waited around only until the time when he was able to speak to John. The implications were more than John cared to consider. But Sherlock obviously had. He supposed there was little chance in Sherlock _not_ considering them all until every detail was as broad and defined as a pier leading off a cliff.

John leaned against the dresser, his palms pressing heavy into the white-washed wood. "You okay?" he asked. "You've been quiet since... well, since everything today."

As before, Sherlock seemed only to ignore him. John scowled, raking his fingers through his wet hair once more.

"Hey, uh... sorry about Moriarty. I'm sure... well, I guess I'm not really sure of anything. But it'll be alright. Whatever happens."

.

.

.

"You going to give me the silent treatment all night?"

To answer in either way would have negated it. Sherlock inhaled sharply, his body going ridged before sinking slowly in on itself, saved from a slouch only through the stiffness of his posture. Other than that single breath, he did not move though it seemed, once again, that there was something behind the unblinking stare. His chest swelled with continued breath as the seconds lengthened into a silent minute before the peeked lips parted for more than just air. "You were dead," he said, his voice low enough to he felt as it rumbled across the room, nearly too soft to distinguish from a heartbeat. "When Billie pulled you out. You were dead."

John felt his own wave of shock run through him as his nerves fizzled at the surface. "...Moriarty is alive and running free and you're still thinking about _that_? I'm okay, Sherlock. It lasted a couple minutes tops—-no brain damage, no muscle injury, I'm fit and ready for duty. Did I scare you that badly?"

Yes. John had seen the stiff, unhinged version of the man he loved on at least one other occasion when his senses told him what his head could not reconcile. All the detective needed was a drink in his shaking grasp to complete the picture.

Sherlock looked down at his lap, his hands curling into the pleat of his trousers. "In the past, I always felt that I could save you," he said, his voice louder this time and stronger. "Even when you were in danger, I knew... I don't _do_ helpless. But there was nothing I could do. I saw the two of you struggle and fall in, I watched Billie leap into the water and the constable follow after. I just stood there waiting for you to come up, watching the bubbles on the surface, holding my own breath to see how plausible it was you were still conscious to save yourself. And when I finally saw you, you weren't... You _weren't_. I have seen so many corpses in my life but I have never felt... sick... at the sight of one. It wasn't you, John, it was flesh and bones and everything that rots. It was revolting." His head fell forward, the coils of curls shifting towards his downcast eyes with an indecent bounce. His set jaw remained square while his lips pursed thin and white. Some emotions would never be easy for him to accept and allow shamelessly, John thought. But there were few things more beautiful than a stoic man unhinged by the contents of his heart.

"I didn't mean to scare you," John said a few breaths above a whisper.

Sherlock shook his head. "You didn't scare me. I'm not _scared_." He looked up at last, his face turning to John where all the resolve in the world could hardly mount a grand enough defense against the patented Watson frown of understanding. Sherlock wore a scowl instead, masking fear with annoyance. "You're not allowed to die, John. I worked too hard for this."

It was as romantic an expression as it was thought provoking. John was the gunman and the doctor; _John_ did the protecting whereas Sherlock needed to be reminded John was even there sometimes. Or wasn't there. Sherlock was oblivious to everything until it mattered. Sherlock wasn't a protector, he very badly needed to be protected himself.

But the fall had been to save John. Sigerson was simply a Sherlock who could not function in a world without John, perpetuated by the need to keep him safe. The attempted sacrifice for Mary and the risky handling of Moran were all for John's protection. John had guarded Sherlock for eighteen months and Sherlock had lived every day for nearly three years on a mission to reciprocate. There was really no arguing with effort he'd put into it nor the strength of love that fueled it. They had both worked long and hard to reach where they were now and only death would part them.

John licked his lips, not sure how to set his partner's mind at ease when most words of comfort would be lies. "We live dangerous lives, Sherlock. I can't promise I won't get killed any more than you can. And the thought of losing you scares me too. I know what it was like to lose you once already. Next time I probably won't be so lucky as for you to come back. That kind of miracle only happens once."

Sherlock nodded slowly, his scowl sliding with the proper response. He sighed, raking his hands through his curls as though untangling his thoughts. "I'm glad you took that job. The one at the hospital," he said at last, looking off at an old painting of the river hung on the wall opposite but somehow still knowing John was near retort. "I mean it. I miss the idea of you being there with me but we both know how I get. When I'm working, I'm working, and I don't see anything but the case. Whether you're with me or at work or at home, it makes no difference. I don't have time for you when I'm doing my job. And I think I can do my job better knowing you're safe."

"I don't want to be cut off from your work, Sherlock. It's part of you and it's part of us."

"It's the part that is going to be the end of us."

John felt a pang in his chest at the sound of regret and hollow acceptance in Sherlock's husky baritone. He pushed away from the dresser, steps slow and careful, slowing coming to stand in front of Sherlock where his eyes could not focus on anything but him as he brushed the curls from his brow. "Not of us," he promised, letting his fingers linger and slide down the side of his face, falling off his chiseled cheek bones to cup along his jaw. "We might die on one of your adventures but we'll still be together. This doesn't end, Sherlock. This is going to be around long after we're gone."

It was cheesy. It was impossible. It was one big, romanticized lie that would have been much more relevant if his partner wasn't a scientist who believed bodies were elemental compounds and souls did not exist. When they died they'd be burned and buried and nothing but the memory of them would exist.

No, not just the memory, the _legend_ of the greatest detective the world had ever known as chronicled by his lifelong companion.

Maybe it wasn't so impossible. Maybe it wasn't just a romantic lie. Maybe they could be together forever in the stories and attention that sometimes brought them nothing but misery. Maybe they really could love each other forever, even after death.

Sherlock said nothing to mock him nor shaped his face to scorn his sentiment—both spoken and not. Instead he drew his fingers along the back of John's neck, coercing him to bend lower, and kissed him without hesitancy in a lingering, heartfelt union of lips that had said too much already.

John was only too happy to oblige. He braced one hand against the post of their bed, the other curling along Sherlock's shoulder as he remained bent and half looming, the belt of his dressing gown tapping against Sherlock's thigh. Everything still tasted of mint but the parted lips that invited him in were still a texture to be treasured. John helped himself to all that was offered, finding the unschooled reciprocation endearing as Sherlock assessed, adapted and implemented each movement in turn. It was like a game of call and response, teaching Sherlock how to kiss and moaning in turn to his enthusiastic application. Deleted information; practical knowledge retained for cases but technique lost to disinterest, or perhaps entirely unrehearsed and exclusively novel. There was never any knowing with unasked questions. It was hard to really care about any answers with Sherlock Holmes's tongue in one's mouth.

The unselfconscious moans and hungry, moist smacks alluded to a more serious desperation that seldom entered into things, the hands sliding against the wet curves of John's thighs making his knees lock to keep from trembling. His eyes were left tightly shut, teeth tugging at Sherlock's bottom lip, while the thin, dexterous fingers of the violinist slid up under the terry cloth drapings and converged between his legs. Presumption had already stirred John's arousal but the touch, the first inquisitive stroke of fingertips over the bare shaft of his cock had John's grasp white knuckled on the bedpost, breath trapped in his lungs. This was it; something was going to happen tonight. He could feel Sherlock's thoughts through his hands, the subtle uncertainty at the new angle and approach to touching someone else, sliding over the length of him with the whole of his hand to measure before sliding down in a loose fist to gauge his girth. The other hand palmed his scrotum, testicles rolled and massaged and held high where the heat of his own body and the friction of Sherlock's touch filled the pit of his belly with warmth. It had been months since he'd been touched like this and several lifetimes unknowingly waiting for it to be Sherlock touching him.

John moved his hand from Sherlock's shoulder to his head, holding him still by his curls, dark hair sprouting through his fingers as he deepened the kiss, tongue flicking along the sensitive roof of his mouth, licking at his molars, thrusting against Sherlock's surprisingly pliable tongue that was usually venom tipped and wild. The suppressed whimper was felt in the seize of Sherlock's grip, fingers tensing around the doctor's prepus and corona. John groaned with want, rolling his hips into the caress, driving Sherlock's tentative touches into a slackened grip to thrust into. The post-shower damp was hardly enough to moisten Sherlock's hands, the friction almost as uncomfortable as it was fantastic. The last thing John wanted to do was pull away and adjust for comfort. Parched men did not turn their noses at anything offered to satisfy.

But neither did a gentleman accept a handjob from his over-dressed boyfriend with whom he desperately needed to reciprocate.

John kept one hand anchored on the bed as he groped down against Sherlock's lap, the stiff heat of his bulge happy to greet him while the pressure of his palm sent an arc of surprised pleasure through Sherlock's spine, uttered as a nearly soundless mumble of breath. It sparked through John as though it had been his own delight. Sherlock's voice was generally quick to thrill him and those sounds, those attempts at words that fell apart into breath and wanting, were going to be his undoing. John chased his lips as Sherlock let his head fall back, finally settling on the pale stretch of neck exposed to him. He sucked and nibbled, his tongue following a tendon as his hand worked Sherlock through his pants, drawing out that first touch, not wanting to rush even as he flushed to recall the very short list of what had come before. Sherlock was pushing forward as John had pushed, motivated by fear and desperation and above all love. It wasn't how John wanted it to be for them but the curious finger smearing a bead of precum along the slit of his glans was doing a fine job of convincing him to fuck candlelight and romance and just grant them both a well deserved release. Sherlock probably would have laughed at the idea of mood music. Sentiment. Sex without sentiment was just a good fuck, though, and John didn't want so much as a kiss without the right intention.

He pulled away from Sherlock gently, hands grasping his forearms to still the slow ministrations. "S-Sherlock." He licked his lips to clear the stutter, feeling impossibly warm as he felt the heat radiating from his groin. "We should.. ah…." He searched his head for the thoughts that had taken over long enough to give them space, his gaze startled in the amazing colors and depths of Sherlock's eyes. God, he was beautiful, and the flush on Sherlock's face told that he'd said that last part out loud. He kissed him softly, apologizing to the plump bottom lip that was dark with bruising. The want was great but not greater than John's resolve. "I've got maybe two goes in me, Sherlock," he said, forehead pressed to forehead. "And I'd rather spend them _with_ you, not just _because_ of you."

There was perhaps no finer example of Watson language fail than that particular wording of 'I love you'. But Sherlock spoke Watson in every known dialect and responded in Holmes by slowly unbuttoning his shirt. John groaned with yearning, sliding his hands along his shoulders to press back the suit jacket in assistance.

"Right side pocket," Sherlock commanded, and curious, John let his hand travel down his side to frisk through the article. His fingers curled around stiff rectangles as he pulled one of several out, bringing it between them to see. Lubricant. Trial sized packets of personal lubricant, the sort usually keep in stock in any surgery.

John chuckled, turning it over in his hand. "I can't turn my back on you for five seconds," he said, his smile almost hurting with how far it tried to stretch. He dropped the handful on the mattress, imagining with no lack of detail how amazing it was going to feel to stroke them both in his hands, the pair of them thrusting against each other through his slippery grip, rutting like teenagers to a syncopated tempo while questioning the stability of the bed's legs with the sway of their bodies.

Sherlock had his shirt unbuttoned and untucked, jacket halfway down his arms to serve as the only reason he hadn't made himself yet bare above the waist of his trousers. "It's an effort to be more proactive," he stated, sitting straight as John finished the unveiling of his torso, waiting for the final push of his silk shirt from his skin before grasping the swaying belt of John's dressing gown and pulling it open like drapes parting to reveal a work of art. He needlessly drew the cord out through its loops, eyes locked on John's. "We're both men of action, John. Scared doesn't begin to describe what it felt like seeing you on the shore and neither is love a narrow enough term to describe why I can never lose you. Perhaps this is the best way to make myself understood."

John licked his lips, shoulders shrugging off the unsecured cloth leaving not but the towel around his waist. He nodded, his pulse racing. Explaining something intangible and invisible was like describing sound to the deaf or sight to the blind; there was no way to taste the purple music. In his own grief, no words had been less helpful than '_I know how you feel_' and so he didn't bother offering them to the man he once mourned for years. Loss, fear, terror, love; they were individual feelings available to everyone but unique in the experience. John didn't mind saying '_I love you_' with his body. His hands had always been his best means of expression whether to protect or embrace. "You happen to pilfer condoms as well?" he asked, more worried about sleeping on sticky sheets than finding his hands salted in semen.

"No." Sherlock unsecured the tuck of John's towel and let it fall to the floor, eyes still unwavering in their stare as his hands framed his bare hips. "I'd prefer you not wear one if it's all the same to you. Despite your level of experience, you've never had undiluted intimate contact in the act of penetration. While I put no value in virginity, I would like you to experience something new as well." He paused, head tilting slightly with the rise of his brow. "Unless it's a hygienic concern for you, in which case Billie always has a sleeve of them in the inside zipper of her purse."

If the floor was still under John's feet, he wasn't aware of it anymore. He felt his knees unbuckle with the sensation of falling. Surely Sherlock wasn't suggesting-but, oh _God_, he was. John felt flush with nearly equal parts embarrassment and arousal, his nakedness attesting to the latter in all ways irrefutable. He licked his lips, swallowing hard at the intensity of Sherlock's grey stare and the pressure of his thumbs against his pelvis. "We- We don't have to-"

"I want to." Sherlock's voice was stern though his touch was soft as he allowed his gaze to lower, his face leaning in close to kiss below John's naval, chin breezing over his shaft as his lips puckered gently at the soft trail of hair on his belly. "I appreciate your objection but it's what you're used to; it's what you're confident in and I want you at your best. I deserve your best," he said, lips parting once more as his tongue swept down the same path of his lips, bypassing the tuft of light hair below as his hand encircled John at his base to better present his target.

John pressed his hand into Sherlock's hair, heel of his palm against Sherlock's forehead as he curled his fingers into his bangs to still him. "You'd have my best in anything I did for you, Sherlock," he promised, the less eloquent part of his mind flailing madly over the short distance between his penis and Sherlock's lips.

Sherlock smiled softly, his fingers splaying in a familiar bow hold along the shaft of John's cock. "I know. But when people speak of sex, _that_ is what they mean. So let's not idle in semantics. Let's have sex, John." He leaned forward, kissing the rosy glans that were dark with want as his lips pushed down against the already retracting foreskin. John's stifled moan-turned-hum of wordless approval spurned him to taste again, tilting his head to run the tip of his tongue along John's frenulum in an exploratory sweep to test and gather data to better serve them both.

Sherlock wasn't going to win any awards for his improvised technique but John was one sloppy suck away from losing it. "Are you absolutely sure?" he asked, staring up at the ceiling to see if he'd somehow stored his stamina away up there as he was exerting very little evidence of it. Murphy's Law would certainly dictate that the time he truly wanted to impress would be when he had almost zero restraint. "It's never too late to change your mind. Anything you want. _Everything_ you want. Slow as you need. Just tell me."

Sherlock licked at the liquid seeping from the tip, his fingers strong in their stead grasp. "Haven't we done enough talking?"

"_Yes_," John hissed, hands reconvening on Sherlock's shoulders to gently push him back, not stopping at sitting as he continued to guide him to lay down against the bed. The detective's trousers very much needed to be discarded. The best means to refocus John's want was in making Sherlock unravel in his own.

He tipped the button through its hole, anxious fingers pinching against the metal zip as he pulled it down, not nearly as careful as he would have had he guessed that the man was not wearing pants. The black, ungroomed curls were instantly in view, no spare material to hide them, and running beneath them the swollen length of his trapped member. John peeled his trousers down, gravity keeping the swing of Sherlock's freed cock less comical as it rolled to rest against his belly. John had seen it all before-far more times than he really felt the need to comment on-but there was a difference in the context that made normal male anatomy extraordinary. Sherlock bent his head to watch as John extracted each pale ankle from his socks and trousers. His socks were crispy from dried dew and sweat and his legs patterned in little catches from low branches and smears of dirt-turned-mud in the days exertions.

He wiggled his toes, sitting up on his elbows. "Probably would do for me to have showered as well."

"It's fine" John said, kneeling on the bed in a straddle over his thighs as he bent to kiss him again, fingers loving the flesh that clung to his ribs where months ago there had been so little. He smelled oaky and of dust. The musk of London had left him in the wood. "You're fantastic."

Sherlock hummed into a smirk, fingers completely ignorant of foreplay as they entwined again along John's dick. "Flattery will get you everywhere."

"But _that_ is going to make it a short trip." John chuckled, grabbing his forearms to pull the hands away, pinning them gently to the mattress. He kissed him, letting his teeth catch his bottom lip. "While I admire your enthusiasm, just let me lead for a bit, okay? You want my best, yeah?"

Sherlock's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't make a habit of drawing these things out," he said, and made his point as he arched up between John's legs, hips searching and finding the heated contact of John's groin.

John gasped with surprise against Sherlock's lips-parted with a groan. "Jesus, Sherlock." He released his hands to grapple with his hips, pinning them down instead as the hydra's many heads seemed to reel up and showed themselves. "I don't care how little time you spend knocking one out in the shower, this is not the same thing."

"Doesn't mean you shouldn't still get on with it," Sherlock quipped.

Impossible was in many ways the only way to describe the detective. John left the encouraging laugh in his belly as he shifted to lay beside his lover, pulling him close as he ignored the order and instead kissed him, the mint flavor finally fading.

He slid his thigh between Sherlock's, entangling their legs while his hands wrapped around to keep them pressed chest to chest. He tried not to rock against him. John tried to keep his hips steady, his mind somewhere else as his hands roamed across plains of muscle and the bumps of Sherlock's spine. He let their bodies drift apart only to follow the curve of the detective's ribcage to caress the supple mounds of his pecs, lips never leaving their post. He rolled his thumb against a nipple, pressing the erect nub down into the areola then rubbing it in circles when it popped back out. John was sure he knew Sherlock far too well when the short, nasal exhale all but told him everything he needed to know about what Sherlock thought about male nipple play. A hearty pinch and the resulting stiff straightening of Sherlock's spine said about all John needed to on the subject as well. He smirked against their kiss as Sherlock nipped at his bottom lip. John had always pictured times like these as being much more classically romantic. He rather hoped their romance never lost its playfulness.

There was no telling how long Sherlock would forgive him the indulgence of foreplay. Their lives were often with few frills, preferring straight thrills, but lord help him if John didn't prefer to luxuriate in the current moment. His Sherlock melting into their kisses, the feel of the flush of his skin under his hand, the improvised tactics the detective slowly executed in response that were no longer simply an echo but an honest, personal reply. John loved how Sherlock ran his long legs up his, how his long fingers put their precision to good use in finding every spot along John's torso that either made him jolt at the tickle or shiver with sensitivity.

John had a handful of Sherlock's hair by the time he pulled away, having to retreat from the lips that followed him as Sherlock sought him out. "I need to grab the-"

"Yes," Sherlock said, one of the lubricant packets suddenly in his hand through the creative use of toes. He brought it to his swollen lips, canines ripping through the plastic and foil to tear it open. There was definitely something sexy about ingenuity.

John put his hand out, letting Sherlock squeeze some of the packet's contents onto his palm before sliding his hand between their bodies and giving Sherlock the intimate touches he'd been after, fingers curling around his neglected erection to the sweet sound of his surprised cry. John licked his lips at the sight of him, head back and eyes wide as John's hand glided over him, a firm squeeze here and there to keep his attention focused and refined. "So fucking beautiful," John whispered, burring his face into his neck to kiss and suck the sweat glossed skin. He adjusted their postures just enough to slide himself into contact as well and felt Sherlock's moan from the root of his cock to the ends of his hair. "_Jesus_."

"J-John, I-!"

John nodded, grunting deep in his throat as he reached lower to roll the detective's testicles in his palm, knuckles kneading against his perineum as his hips drove him to thrust against Sherlock's length.

"_Oh, God_!" Sherlock's fingers dug in deep at John's hips, his body vibrating like a tuning fork with John hitting just the right note. "I think I may... Feels like-!"

John stopped, teeth dragging against the tendon of his neck. "You want to go over once before or come back down?"

Sherlock shook his head, breaths an unsteady staccato. "I don't kn-..._With_ you, yes?"

"I'm not going yet."

"Could you, maybe?" He groaned, fingers tensing in their hold on John to the point of bruising, half-moon divots already forming in the tan skin. "Ah, you should probably stop then or I soon won't be able to."

John nodded, kissing his way back to Sherlock's lips as he forced them to part for breath and the regulation of heartbeats. The detective's lack of stamina was endearing though John tried not to smile least it be mistaken for teasing. He wouldn't dare fault the man his inexperience. John was all too fond of the benefits.

Sherlock rolled onto his back, face intent upon the ceiling as his cheeks puffed out with a long, shaky breath. "That was... we have a lot of ground to cover," he said, chest very slowly evening with its rise and fall, his skin brilliantly rose colored from the tips of his ears all the way down to the knuckles of his toes.

John watched him adoringly. "We do," he conceded, sitting up to brush his right hand, the clean hand, through the renegade curls against his lover's forehead. "We can stop with this for now if you want. I don't mean _stop_ stop but just... go back to this for the time being. Save other things for later."

Sherlock took a deep breath and in the pause John wasn't sure in which way he hoped he would decide. It was like having to choose between two favorite foods: lasagna or spaghetti-either way, he was getting Italian. Either way he had Sherlock, he was going to have him, and the small tastes he'd had had greatly whetted his appetite.

Sherlock swallowed, one last deep breath passing through his nose as he looked down at the foot of the bed. "Give me the lubricant packets. Probably be pointlessly complicated expecting you to open them with one well oiled hand."

John smiled, leaning over to gather the rest of the silver rectangles before putting them down close to Sherlock's side. "You want lube duty, that's fine by me," he said, kissing him again in parting while Sherlock's drawn and parted knee prodded him in the side.

Sherlock tore open another packet, holding it out for John's hand.

"Middle finger mostly. Not too much just yet."

The detective nodded, squeezing out what John agreed was an acceptable amount.

John made himself comfortable on his side, flush against Sherlock with his head at his shoulder, propped up on his own wrist. He let his left wrist lean against Sherlock's left thigh as he curled his fingers under his scrotum. "If at any point you don't like this, let me know," he said, medical knowledge stepping forward where intimacy required the discipline and care. "Just... Well, just be your normal self and don't hold back telling me anything."

Sherlock chuckled, adjusting his hips on the mattress as he lay spread for John's intrusion. "This isn't quite how I thought it'd be. Sex, I mean," he noted with no amount of accusation.

John kissed his ear as he let his middle digit circle and spread the pilfered lubricant in warming circles over his opening. "Regrets or concerns?"

"None," Sherlock said, turning his face to nuzzle his nose against John's.

John pressed with firmer pressure at the puckered ring of flesh, feeling it spread against his insistence, the pad of his finger flexing it open without penetrating past. He kissed him gently with several parting repeats as he pushed and circled, knuckle crooking his fingertip just inside to roll in slippery circuits. He could feel Sherlock inhale a shaky breath through his nose, body seizing ever so slightly at what was new and unexpectedly pleasant. He relaxed slowly but fully into it, hip canting in small gyrations as the sensation lost its novelty and his baser instincts sought something more. It was a good sign-a very good sign-but not one John was willing to hedge all bets against. "I'm going to push inside now, okay?" he asked.

Sherlock nodded, swallowing thickly before vocalizing his interest. "Yes, that's.. that would be good."

John sat up on his side, weight held on his right arm to watch Sherlock better, not content to feel his reactions down his body or in his breath against his skin. He pressed his finger in deeper, maintaining its curve as he caught Sherlock's gaze in his own, the flush of his face livening his pallor while his sea shaded eyes remained keen. His brows knitted curiously, expression uncertain until the pad of John's finger pressed in close to its mark making his eyes fly wide with hardly the bat of a lash.

"Too much?"

"'salright," Sherlock muttered around the tension in his jaw.

"You're squeezing around my finger."

"And you're fiddling with sensitive anatomy. Job well done. Honestly, I'm not sure what sort of reaction you were expecting."

John kissed his nose as he applied pressure again, close but still not touching, pressing firmer to find his threshold as he sank in towards his prostate. The first mewings were a surprised absence of language followed quickly by a sudden, intense remembrance of the first letter of the alphabet with none of the rest to follow. Sherlock's thighs all but slammed shut around John's wrist as his back arched and his head fell back in utter wantonness. John gave the bundle of nerves a drawn out caress to ensure the reaction wasn't just born of surprise, stubbornly maintaining Sherlock's presence in the sensation as he watched his open-mouthed gaspings. The man took no shame in his pleasure, even from this, and John envied him his honesty as much as he congratulated himself on earning the love a man such as him.

John sat up, maneuvering gently to prize apart Sherlock's knees once more. They fell open with little resistance as John made room to extract his finger, drawing it out slowly as Sherlock's body unwound from the rigor of revelry. "I think you quite liked that," he said, smiling as he watched the clouds slowly fade from his lover's eyes.

Sherlock let out a long breath, flushed chest expanding with the effort he maintained to refocus. "I-yes. A little mu-... but, ah, I-I don't think you can mirror that sort of precision with your penis so it should be.. good."

It was worth the challenge to prove him wrong. John kissed his knee as he extended his left hand back towards Sherlock, the detective taking a moment to recall his job before grabbing the open packet of lube and squeezing it out onto the fingers.

"It's not going to take much longer to get you ready," John said, lips flavored with the perspiration from the crook of Sherlock's knee. "You given any thought to the position you want to use?"

Sherlock all but rolled his eyes as he tossed the empty packet aside. John smirked, returning to the slow, circling pressure along his perineum and still slackened hole. "You want me to go over a few of them? Pros and Cons?"

"I figured we could just do this in the manner you like and go from there."

"We could," John agreed, letting his middle finger delve back inside to continue the slowly revolving touch where the muscles were most resistant. "Most of the positions I like favor deeper penetration or are stable enough for more forceful movements. Missionary's good for that. Not really my ideal for enjoying every detail of love making but fantastic for a great shag. Laying sort of spooned on our sides wouldn't be too bad 'cept for limiting things to more of a grind than a thrust but from what I've seen in pictures, face-to-face tends to look like the bloke on the bottom's a bit trapped."

Sherlock chuckled, arms reaching overhead towards the headboard. "You're enjoying this," he said with a shaky grin, his eyes heavily lidded. "Knowing more than me. Showing off."

"Only because I get so few opportunities with you to do so." John pressed his left index finger alongside the middle digit, wiggling past resistance as he slowly pressed for added girth in his internal massage. He watched the bolt of tension in Sherlock's thighs that seized with the man's grunt then subsided with the accompanied groan. John remained half still, tiny gyrations added to the stretch until Sherlock's hips urged him on with their own.

John tried not to focus too much on what Sherlock felt like inside or what it was going to feel like getting to experience every inch he could claim with his cock, tip to root, balls deep if Sherlock wanted it and most of his knowledge of the man saying he was damn well going to give it at least a try. They were getting so close now, it was safer to allow himself to enjoy the warmth and softness, the conforming fit, the forgiving pressure that pressed his knuckles together but eased into the stretch as he scissored them apart. He could feel the anticipation in the swelling of his dick, his erection having waned but all the ready to rise again. Just a few more minutes. He wouldn't hurry them though he almost ached with the want to.

Sherlock idly stroked himself, his own restraint visible in the uncertainty of how to touch without hastening towards climax. He stole John's rhythm, the slow thrusts of his spreading fingers, to find a satiating pace. John licked his lips at the sight, watching his fingers delve inside while Sherlock's hand fell and the rise of his wrist as John pulled his fingers nearly out. He kept at it longer than necessary, preparation never really a task proven to be in excess, as he entertained himself with Sherlock's display. He was ready in every way, no hang ups or fears keeping back his mind or heart in the presence of his body's acceptance. John regretted the cessation of his movements only a little less than he enjoyed the frustration in Sherlock's at their absence.

He extended his left hand again for lube and Sherlock was quick to abandon his task to comply.

"How much lon-"

"This is it. This bit's just to help with the next part." John leaned over him with a kiss as he returned his hand to the junction of his long legs, pressing inside with few globs of the lubricant before rubbing the excess along his inner thighs and arse, no small amount spared for John's own raring erection. "I want you on top, Sherlock," he whispered, kissing his lips again and then down the path of his neck. "You can choose if you'd rather me sitting or laying but I'd like you to be in control for this first bit. I want you to take it however slow or fast you want to. I want you to experiment with what works for you. And I want to watch you do it."

Sherlock's chuckle was indulgent and rich as his fingers carded through John's short hair. "Then on your back, soldier," he ordered. "If I'm to be observed, I expect you have the best vantage point."

John groaned with lust at the readiness of his words and tone, so ready, _so ready_, and not a mild case of meekness between them. Sherlock grabbed John by the shoulders and rolled him onto his back, kissing him eagerly as he straddled his hips, lifting away only when the position required it. He reached down in front of him to grasp John's cock then, presumably thinking better of it, let go and reached behind himself to take hold of him instead, the detective's arm no longer blocking the view. John licked his lips, chin to chest, trying not to breathe harder at the long fingers sliding over him as Sherlock's hips tentatively descended.

The first brush of intention was hot and moist and incredible. Wrong amount of pressure, perhaps a bit too much lubricant, and John slid past along Sherlock crack instead of inside him. John smiled, hands flexing along Sherlock's thighs, rubbing along them with encouragement. Sherlock's face pinched in slight annoyance but he took hold of John and tried again with a new angle of descent, differing pressure once their bodies became aligned once more. John felt the loosened ring spread around him and dug his finger into Sherlock's legs while his top teeth grounded into his bottom lip. Sherlock hesitated at the stretch but made up for it in an insistent bounce that pushed the head in fully, sphincter clamped beneath the crown of John's cock.

"A-Ah, John, that's... _ah_..."

"Oh, _fuck_ me," John groaned, remembering to exhale only by the prompting as he let his head roll back, eyes closed in luxuriating repose. "Take your time. _Jesus_, I'm in. And you feel amazing. Do whatever you need to relax into it. I'm good. I am so, so good." The softness, the heat, the pressure against his skin instead of separated by millimeters of latex, foreskin sliding in contact with flesh rather than trapped in place. Oh, _god_, he'd never known this. And if he didn't feel too constricted inside him, chances were Sherlock was more than capable of simply breathing through the stretch. John blinked his eyes open, his want to watch not forgotten as he looked up to Sherlock's face, gratified by the sight of his thinking face with no sign of pain above discomfort.

Sherlock was never one for caution or taking things smooth or steady. In less than a minute he was settling down, swallowing inches more in a smooth decline while John nearly arched off the bed to keep his hips grounded. Sherlock pressed his hands to John's belly for stability until his arse came to rest on John's pelvis, scrotum to pubes, his hips shimmying in place to be absolutely sure he had taken all of John there was to take.

"_Christ_!" John bit out, pinned by Sherlock's weight, the feeling familiar but the sight alone beyond arousing. "Steady on."

"Doesn't hurt," Sherlock said, voice calmer than expected. "Feels… full. But not painful. Very, _very_ strange but… really not too bad. You're obviously having a good time of it."

"Obviously." John let his head fall back once more, rolling his palms over Sherlock's thighs to the point where their bodies met, thumbs against his own pelvis while his fingers splayed against Sherlock's. "Honestly, I am the last person you're going to need to think about here."

Sherlock nodded, palms heavy against John's stomach as he rocked forward, momentum dampened by a sudden twinge they could both feel as muscles made clear their want to slow down. The detective scowled as John's hands soothed and coaxed him. John had rarely the opportunity to be so observant as he scanned Sherlock's flushed face, his whole body a ruby hue with a cock growing scarlet at the glans. This was never something John thought he wanted. It was never something he thought Sherlock wanted. And the fact that they made it here from that strange meeting at Barts, from the tombstone and the living room of their flat that had cast the spell to bring him back, was almost too outstanding to believe. Being in love with Sherlock Holmes was hardly a miracle but having him return that love in every known and unknown outlet was weighing John down with the gravity of it as much as it seemed to raise him up on elation.

With a minute's more breath between then Sherlock shifted again, thighs tense as he raised himself up and lowered back down, nothing fancy, nothing new. His eyes crinkled at the edges. "Actually, you know what this reminds me of?"

"Can we try and be a _little_ more romantic about this?" John asked, trying not to chuckle as he rolled his hips best he could, the weight of his lover making his movements small but strict. Sherlock shuddered and leaned back into him, fingers trialing down his stomach to recline more against his thighs. He echoed the smaller motions on his own, rising and falling in much shorter bursts as he rocked. Sherlock's head rolled back, long neck exposed and so very out of John's reach. John licked his lips. "Better?"

"Mm, I think... It's not as intense as with your fingers but all together it's... The increased stretch is.. good. And I can feel... ah, John, I don't know. Not important. Busy right now."

John nodded, hands weaving over every bit of Sherlock he could touch, shyly stroking him, almost ready to be reprimanded before Sherlock's lips parted in a loud, obvious moan that made the slight creek of the bed even more suspect. There wasn't a desire in his body to ask Sherlock to keep it down. The people of Ross would forget them surely or else tell the tale of the gay couple who had a lovely ole time in their honeymoon suite. Hardly mattered either way. John languidly stroked Sherlock in time with his slower motions, assured enough in Sherlock's pleasure to allow himself to enjoy his own. Tight, warm, wonderful. Sherlock's movements weren't much more than a tease but the sight of them, the smell of them, the presence of 'them' over Sherlock and himself as wholly individual things was an emotional fuck the likes of which he'd never felt before. Sherlock was driving him over the edge with his openness of expression with no gasp swallowed or shiver concealed. John had everything the man could give him-love, body, soul, trust-and there was nothing of it that John would not give him in return. He'd never made love without intermittent kisses, long caresses, chest to chest and in complete control in opposition to succinct surrender. It felt silly now to think the only way to show love and connect absolutely was through simple avenues of touch. There was no need for any such reassurances with Sherlock. They were here now and that said more than any other sensory stimuli ever could.

Sherlock's motions became erratic, his breath pitched in frustration. "I can't... why can't I? It feels-I just want to... ah, John, I need to."

Speaking Sherlock was one of John's many specialties. He nodded, grabbing Sherlock steady by the hips. "Ease up a bit. Let me."

He nodded, leaning forward to rise up further on his knees, John pressing his soles into the mattress as he sought the firm grounding he needed. He arched his hips up off the bed, thrusting up as he guided Sherlock to stay still. The slap of skin was hardly masked by Sherlock's surprised breath. "Oh, _god_," he moaned, right hand encircling his own erection as he met John's eyes, nodding.

John gave him several more slow thrusts, long and short, then started the aching task of pistoning into him with impending climax dulling the strain. It felt good; better. He guided Sherlock's hips where he could not angle his thrusts until he found just the right meeting of their bodies to make Sherlock practically holler, his need enforcing his own want to hold that pose, free hand clawing at John's chest in an effort to release the tension holding them both so close to the edge.

Sherlock went first, John's concentrated efforts and his own inexperience making it a foreseeable certainly but still somehow coming across as a complete surprise as Sherlock shuddered and gasped and shouted. The wave of tension that seized Sherlock's muscles seized John within in, the silken pressure and the sight of his lover's bliss dragging his orgasm from him and with it the need to pull away, decades of drilled knowledge reminding him to never cum inside. Sherlock would not let him disengage, his body trapping John to the mattress under the heaviness of ecstasy. There was an ingrained fear and responsibility to hold back and not follow Sherlock blindly into the fireworks but it was safe, it was okay, and, fuck, he'd always wanted to. He surged one last time into Sherlock rather than put the effort into getting away and burst through his reservations with Sherlock's name on his lips. Sherlock was haloed in the shocks of light, the white lacy fabric of the four poster bed's canopy making an angel out of a man. His heart was going to rupture from bliss and the fire running through him in echoes of passion. John went limp with the last of his adrenalin spent, his breath ragged, his body slick with sweat, his legs sore and his body warmed by the turtled weight of Sherlock Holmes over him.

John wrapped his arms around him, lips kissing the hair that spilled over onto his face from the detective's head tucked neatly against his shoulder. He smiled at the vibrations of the man's chuckle against his belly.

"Well, I can see where that would be preferable to masturbation," Sherlock said, kissing John's neck. "You make an excellent partner. In all things."

John's chest swelled with pride, his arms holding tighter around the thin man laying against him. "Yeah, well... you're brilliant. In all things."

The happy stillness of the moment stretched on past time's keeping with heartbeats serving as their own metronome. John breathed in deep the smell of them-not sweet or pungent but their own variety of sweat, semen and body. He could get used to the sheets smelling of this, of waking up to wash away the smell of _them_ before work in the morning as a happy chore for the efforts it spoke of. He hummed in his delight; peaceful and content and without a further care in the world.

"You did say you had 'two gos' in you, did you not?"

John let his head roll back as he chuckled.


	14. Chapter 14

London was as much a joy to return to as it was to leave.

John sat at their usual pub's table not more than a couple blocks from 221B, feet resting on the middle rung of his bar seat as he nursed a tall lager in the company of his silver haired companion. Lestrade sat opposite, seat facing the door to best view the female patrons as they entered the pub. It was habit more than function. Though the Detective Inspector glanced now and then when long legs peeking out from under a skirt marched in on black stilettos, conversation was of a business nature and not really suited to romantic engagements.

"So this guy, this guy who may be _the_ Moriarty is now on the loose and god knows where?" he summarized, raking his fingers through his short hair. "Jesus, what does Mycroft think about all this, then?"

John shrugged his shoulders, licking some of the thick head from his upper lip. "Don't know. I didn't tell him though I'm sure it's gotten to him through other channels."

"_Christ_ this can't be good."

No, generally speaking, it wasn't.

John found it hard to care, though. He was desensitized to it after the months of threats since the night that saw the resurrection of Sherlock Holmes. Danger was status quo. While growing old with Sherlock was a pleasant thought, the reality of it all was more acceptable than it was sobering. He'd accepted a lot of things since firing one of three shots. True or not, he'd have to accept being called gay and with it the awkwardness in the stigma. He was likely never going to be anyone's father. Christmas parties would always be somewhat awkward with a male plus one who had as much patience for social outings as bacterium did for penicillin. Never being bored had been one of the handful of reasons he enjoyed the life he started with Sherlock three years before. Being loved and loving were the only reasons he needed to consider it all still a life worth living and surely a death worth dying.

"What are you and Sherlock going to do about it?" Greg asked. His drink remained untouched and perspiring on the cardboard square beneath it.

John shrugged again, finding little better a response. "We do what we always do. We do what makes us both happy. And in the end, if it really is him and he decides enough is enough, then Sherlock and I take him on again. Together, this time, and believe me I will have drilled that point into his skull when the time comes. Until then, there's nothing we can do. Nothing about this anyway. About Moriarty. Luckily Sherlock and I have plenty of other-more important-things to do. He can wait. Moriarty can wait fifty years, honestly, and I'll be a happy man."

Greg stared at him incredulously, fingers finally rewrapping themselves along the sweating glass. "Just like that, huh? No stupid schemes, no trap or extended vacations? You really okay with just not knowing? What about revenge? I mean, if there's any chance he was even remotely behind what happened to you and Sherlock then he's got plenty to answer for."

"Better things to do with my life," John said. He figured that was really all that needed to be said but Greg's continued squint of disbelief urged him to continue. He licked his lips, eyes alternating between being cast to the lacquered table top and Greg's tired face. "Look," he began, "Moriarty ruined Sherlock's reputation and made him play dead. And you know what happened? Sherlock and I stayed best friends even while he was James Sigerson, we got Moran, and now the whole world knows Sherlock Holmes was framed and is every bit the genius I made him out to be. James Moriarty has the power to make things very inconvenient but what he doesn't have is the power to put a stop to Sherlock or myself. He pulled out all the stops and here we are, better than ever. So fuck James Moriarty. I have a job, I have a boyfriend—I have a whole life I need to see to day to day and I can't be bothered wondering how inconvenient he wants to make it for me. Because possibly he will strike again but inevitably Sherlock and I will be okay, even if it's just as two plots in the dirt, side by side."

"You're sort of a hopeless romantic, John," Greg said, lifting his glass slightly in a mock toast. "But I can't argue too much with that. Honestly, I don't know what I'd do if you two wanted to pursue some sort of revenge on the guy. Wouldn't feel right not to help but I wouldn't have the resources or the legal leverage to do anything one way or the other. Still think you're taking this way better than I would if I were in your shoes."

John tipped his glass back, his buzz just kicking in and filling his head with comfortable static. "Five years ago I wouldn't either. And then there was Sherlock."

"And then there was Sherlock," Greg echoed, smile spreading wide across his face with little else needing said between two men who had both been there in their own ways—living lives as ordinary as anyone else's until stumbling upon the genius mind searching for his audience.

John took his mobile from his pocket, checking with cursory interest whether or not Sherlock had decided to text him on his night out. There wasn't anything there past that afternoon's _'Tell him to shut up for me.'_ during another spirited away meeting in Vauxhall Cross. John had told Church that Sherlock said 'hello' instead. The man's rolling eyes had said he knew better anyway. The MI6 security clearance granted to John by the powers vested in Mycroft said both men were very knowledgeable indeed on the workings of their trinity. John had always wanted to be a secret agent when he was a boy. Now the only pleasure he derived from it was the knowledge that no amount of hush-hush bureaucracy could keep him off a case alongside the notorious Sherlock Holmes. Doctor by day, suave man of mystery by night? Nothing quite as glamorous in reality but getting to have everything he wanted was a gift more precious than diamonds.

Greg cleared his throat, ears red with the flush of alcohol as he pulled fresh glasses from a waitress's tray and set one each in front of them. "That's enough talk of the future, I guess. From what I hear we should be raising a real toast."

John's hairline rose slightly as he looked back up, mobile returned to his pocket without need of reply. "Toast to what? Case solved?"

"Nah, nothing so ordinary. No, to John's first gay shag," Greg spoke, glass raised with an impish glint in his brown eyes.

Had his feet not been curled along the stool's rung, John might have fallen off in ignominy. His lips fell to a thin line as his face colored scarlet. "_Jesus_, Greg. Wha-" His mind hadn't far to wander before settling on the only plausible answer. "Billie."

"Bingo." Greg's smirk of superiority showed no signs of tiring. "To be fair, though, it did take a bit of convincing to get her to say anything."

"Yeah, that doesn't actually make me feel any better."

Greg chuckled into his brew, letting it fall back to the cardboard coaster with a refreshed smile. "So. Best night of your life or thank Christ for celibacy?"

"Neither."

"But it was… ya know… good?"

"Yes, I had a gay ol' time gaying it up with my gay boyfriend." John leaned heavy on his elbows, arms propped up on the table behind his second glass, trying not to be too conscious of the people around them least he boil in embarrassment. "This isn't actually something we need to know about each other."

"No but I know it's not exactly your thing. Or his, really. Not trying to be too nosey or nothing but.. ya know. Just wanna make sure two are going to be okay. Wasn't a mistake or nothing."

John let a deep breath cool him though his face still felt warm. He licked his lips, somewhat torn between telling his friend to piss off and assuring him that they'd both come away from the experience with better expectations than when they first went into it. But it was private. Intimate. Something that people in their lives like Greg didn't need to know about but certainly seemed to still have a somewhat vested interest in. John supposed he couldn't blame him too much for concern above curiosity. Were he in Greg's shoes, if for some insurmountably disastrous reason Greg ended up in love with the likes of a Holmes, would John want to know they were fine and happy? In a way, it was the same as saying 'I don't judge you; you can tell me anything and it'd be okay'. John'd always rather liked that about Greg. He was a man's man, same as John always believed himself to be and still did, but he wasn't so caught up in the macho games of masculinity to tune out the nonconforming world. He was a police officer. Greg'd probably heard and seen everything and in his position there was no greater failing than being too proud or confidant than to admit when one needed help. H e had seen the worst of what humanity could do to itself on the home front where John had seen what nations could to do men on the front lines. Different wars, different men, but the same lessons learned in the power of fear and hubris. On a professional level, John would trust Greg absolutely with damn near anything. He supposed it was almost insulting not to trust him on a personal level with a certain degree of veracity.

"Right," John surveyed the area around them, leaning heavier on the table as he leaned in so speak. "Oktoberfest. Germany. I was... Jesus, 23? Med school student on holiday with some mates. Met a Taiwanese tourist who took me back to her hotel room after a few pints in the streets. Most mind blowing sexual encounter of my life. I would have to draw you pictures to describe some of the things that woman could do. Hands down most amazing fuck I have ever had. Came so hard I actually checked to make sure I hadn't somehow shot my testicles back inside. I'm talking the sort of experience you hear guys brag about and know for sure it's all bollocks but God's honest truth, that was damn near attempted murder. I had lost two pounds by morning. Nothing since then has ever topped that. It's just.. one for the history books." John gave a sideways smirk at the memory, sipping quickly from his glass in the space of a breath. "All that said, I would rather forget everything about that one night than forget... anything...about him. I mean pointless normal stuff like the order in which he flosses his teeth. I would rather have an entire mind bungalow of Sherlock's hand scar patterns and moles than even the last remaining highlights of Miss Penis Pole Dancer 1998."

Greg eyed him with further doubt before shrugging his shoulders and taking another hearty swig of his dark ale. "Well... if you don't want them, I'll take them."

"Rhetoric's lost on the working man."

"Yeah, but we can still tell bullshit when we smell it."

"I mean it," John rebutted.

Greg half-snorted. "Yeah, well you and Billie might want to get your stories straight then, mate."

"Why, what's Billie saying?"

"She said she'd bring Mrs. Hudson 'round some earplugs 'case the walls are as thin on Baker Street as they are in the country."

John felt his stomach drop and his face burn bright crimson.

Greg chuckled, smacking him hard in the arm from across the table. "Don't worry, I'll drop it; I am dropping it," he promised. "Just, ya know, cheers, yeah? Sounds like you and Sherlock got it all figured out. You're like a real couple now."

"If by that you mean a severed head from the morgue isn't the only thing likely to have put a bit of pep in Sherlock's step then yeah, sure; cheers." John rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling incredibly warm in his cardigan.

"To Sherlock's pep," Greg said, with his half empty glass tipped close to John's.

John hid a smile in his downward gaze, tipping his own till the glasses clinked. He'd toasted to weirder things before.

* * *

John tipped the cabby generously before half stumbling back into 221B well sauced and somewhat silly. He didn't trip along the steps but took them carefully, slowly, listening above to the tell tale signs of life. Though there was silence there was light.

At the landing he could see Sherlock in the kitchen, marigolds on his hands and goggles concealing his eyes as he held a beaker in one hand and a test tube in the other. Hard at work as always. John leaned in the doorway, watching him silently as the detective very carefully added one clear substance to another, turning the whole a churning teal that ripened into blue. Sherlock did not look up as he peered at the concoction.

"Had a good time, then," he asked.

"Yeah." John breathed deep, sighing on the exhale. "Yeah, Greg was buying so had a few more than necessary. Hard to turn away another man's generosity. What with the week we've had."

Sherlock smiled slightly, putting the test tube down to grab a long tool to pipe the liquid onto a slide. His long fingers worked precisely and elegantly. "Granted. Try not to be too poorly in the morning. Rather hoping to go down to Barts and see about getting a few fresh specimens."

"Toes? Eyeballs? Tongues?"

"Stomachs," Sherlock offered, moving from the open part of the kitchen table to his microscope, goggles shifting to the crown of his head as he pulled his gloves off and laid them with a plop beside him. "First stop for any ingested toxins. Will probably require some of your medical knowledge for a few of the more technical bits so your level of functionality will need to be relatively high."

John grimaced, feeling his own stomach churn slightly at the idea of starting the morning in the morgue. "Right. Well, I'll do my best to be in top form. Billie joining us?"

"Told her to bring the coffee. Eight sharp."

"Eight? Oh, grand. We ought to be off to bed, then, don't you think?" John offered, pushing off the wall to steady himself again on his own two feet.

Sherlock remained sat at his table, flexing the dials at the sides of his microscope to better few his materials.

John smiled just slightly as he took the long way around towards the bedroom, stopping on the other side of the table to press a kiss to Sherlock's head and give his shoulder a squeeze. "In your own time. But not all night, okay?"

"Mm," was his reply and John patted his shoulder once more before letting go and walking the tired path towards the room they both now shared and the bed that sometimes held two.

John would wait. John would always wait. Because Sherlock couldn't come to him if he didn't.

One of them would always be left waiting it seemed. But it wasn't lonely.

It was rather optimistic, really.

* * *

Thank you for reading; I hope you enjoyed this series 3

~Niko


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